RE-EDUCATION 

AN  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INSTITUTIONAL 
SYSTEM  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 


RE-EDUCATION 

AN  ANALYSIS  OF  THE 

INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  THE 

UNITED  STATES 

BY 

GEORGE  EDWARD  BARTON,  A.I.A. 

Director  of  Consolation  House,  President  of  the  National  Society 
for  the  Promotion  of  Occupational  Therapy 

Author  of 

An  Analysis  of  the  Conditions  Influencing  the  Building  of  the 
Myron  Stratton  Home;  Occupational  Therapy;  etc. 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
prcs?,  Camfcrftge 

1917 


COPYRIGHT,   1917,  BY  GEORGE  EDWARD  BARTON 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  November  igfj 


c 


TO  MY  SISTERS  M.  B.  AND  B.  M.  B. 

TO  E.  W. 

AND  TO  MY  FRIENDS  J.  P.  H.  AND  F.  L.  P. 
WITHOUT  WHOSE  ASSISTANCE 

AND  ENCOURAGEMENT 

IT  COULD  NOT  HAVE  BEEN  WRITTEN 

THIS  BOOK  IS  GRATEFULLY 

DEDICATED 


392343 


PREFACE 

IT  is  commonly  asserted  that  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States  can  think  of  nothing  but  making 
money.  If  this  is  true,  and  if  it  is  also  true 
that  "a  penny  saved  is  a  penny  earned,"  this 
book  should  interest  that  citizen.  If  it  is  un- 
true that  the  American  business  man  can 
think  of  nothing  but  making  money  (and  I  be- 
lieve 'that  it  is  untrue),  there  is  much  in  this 
book  which  should  be  enlightening  to  him. 

It  has  been  written  with  him  especially  in 
mind. 

But,  though  the  ordinary  citizen  is  able  to 
think  clearly  upon  serious  subjects,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  many  fail  to  do  so.  This  is  due 
largely  to  the  fact  that  many  accept,  without 
question,  the  opinions  of  their  favorite  news- 
papers and  magazines  upon  most  subjects  of 
national  or  of  social  importance. 

While  in  most  instances  the  editors  and  the 
staffs  of  the  newspapers  and  magazines  are 
better  fitted  to  deal  with  important  subjects 

vii 


PREFACE 

thaiTare  the  majority  of  their  readers,  unfor- 
tunately, i  those  editors  and  staffs  are  often 
more  concerned  in  writing  such  articles  as 
will  please  their  subscribers,  thus  making  their 
papers  sell,  than  in  carefully  moulding  the 
opinions  of  those  subscribers. 

Likewise,  this  is  characteristic  of  the  trus- 
tees and  managers  of  many  of  our  institutions. 
The  reports  from  the  church,  the  hospital,  the 
school,  the  charity,  while  not  actually  mis- 
representing facts,  often  are  so  phrased  as 
quite  to  mislead  the  reader  who,  through  in- 
experience, is  unable  to  analyze  them.  This 
effort  to  make  apparent  a  great  need,  on  the 
part  of  the  particular  institution  exploiting  it- 
self, succeeds  in  making  the  business  man 
"  come  across  "  with  the  subscription,  for  which 
purpose  the  report  was  written.  On  the  other 
hand,  this  policy  often  makes  the  business 
man  wonder  why,  with  the  enormous  and  con- 
stantly increasing  amounts  of  time,  energy, 
and  money  spent  upon  religion,  social  better- 
ment, education,  sickness,  insanity,  etc.,  the 
conditions  of  society  appear,  if  not  worse,  at 
least  not  greatly  improved, 
viii 


PREFACE 

Able  analyses  of  social  conditions  are  apt  to 
be  thrown  aside  as  "high-brow  stuff"  by  the 
ordinary  business  man.  And  that  business 
man,  feeling  himself  incompetent  to  deal  with 
the  complicated  problems  of  society,  con- 
tinues still  to  give  and  to  give  and  to  give, 
confident  that  the  money  may  be  safely  en- 
trusted to  those  who  know  more  about  the 
subject  than  does  he  himself. 

In  this,  he  is  undoubtedly  correct. 

But,  because  he  has  for  such  a  long  time 
"come  across"  so  easily  and  so  generously, 
many  managers  of  institutions  have  ceased  to 
regard  the  money  entrusted  to  them  as  being 
necessarily  a  part  of  the  world  of  industrial 
affairs.  His  own  individual  undertaking  seems 
to  be  so  necessary  to  the  welfare  of  humanity 
that  each  charity  worker  ordinarily  feels  justi- 
fied in  getting  as  much  money  as  is  possible  for 
his  particular  undertaking,  disregarding  the 
fact  that  there  must  be  a  relation  between  the 
amounts  which  can  be  spent  for  any  purpose, 
however  praiseworthy,  and  the  total  produc- 
tion of  a  people.  *f$ 

There  must  be  a  limit  somewhere  to  the 

ix 


PREFACE 

amount  of  time,  energy,  and  money  which  can 
be  expended  by  a  State  or  an  individual,  how- 
ever rich. 

The  author  of  this  book  has  endeavored  to 
regard  the  institutional  system  of  the  United 
States  in  that  light,  and  to  express  the  results 
of  his  investigation  and  thought  in  such  a  way 
as  to  be  comprehensible  to  the  ordinary  busi- 
ness man.  ( 

No  one  believes  in  statistics,  except  the 
statistician.  The  statistician  does  not  believe 
in  statistics  unless  he  has  compiled  them  him- 
self. If  he  has  compiled  them  himself,  he 
knows  how  many  other  results,  in  addition  to 
his  deduction,  he  might  have  proved  from  the 
same  figures.  While,  therefore,  it  will  be 
necessary  for  me  to  introduce  many  figures  as 
proof  of  some  of  the  rather  unusual  state- 
ments which  I  shall  make,  I  shall  endeavor  to 
express  the  results  of  my  inquiry  less  by  an 
appeal  to  statistics  than  to  that  of  ordinary 
"good  business"  sense. 

The  sociologist,  the  economist,  the  univer- 
sity professor  will  doubtless  be  annoyed  fre- 
quently at  the  methods  used  for  the  expres- 


PREFACE 

sion  of  ideas  and  facts  commonly  handled  in 
an  entirely  different  way.  To  them  I  offer  no 
apology. 

I  have  no  quarrel  with  the  church  or  the 
hospital,  nor  with  any  of  the  other  institutions 
that  are  working  for  the  good  of  humanity. 

But  a  number  of  years  spent  in  practical 
work  along  lines  of  education  and  of  social 
betterment,  combined  with  years  spent  in  the 
meeting  of  industrial  conditions  necessitated 
by  the  practice  of  architecture,  so  unite  as  to 
make  me  believe  that  there  are  some  funda- 
mental weaknesses  or  fallacies  in  our  present 
system  of  dealing  with  education,  sin,  insanity, 
and  disease. 

Restrained  by  no  board  of  directors,  with- 
out the  necessity  of  considering  the  terms  of 
any  deed  of  gift  or  pre-established  policy,  with 
nothing  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose,  I  offer  to 
the  United  States  business  man  the  results  of 
my  investigations,  believing  that  the  time  has 
come  when  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
business  man  to  consider  these  facts. 

I  am  indebted  to  so  many  individuals  and 
to  so  many  institutions  for  advice  and  assist- 

zi 


PREFACE 

ance,  that  to  name  them  all  is  impossible.  I 
wish,  however,  to  express  my  thanks  espe- 
cially to  Dr.  John  A.  Hornsby,  to  Professor 
Charles  Foster  Kent,  and  to  Miss  Marguerite 
Barton.  i 

All  figures  given  and  all  references  made  to 
conditions  in  Europe  (except  those  upon  the 
subject  of  Re-Education,  distinctly  so  stated) 
refer  necessarily  to  the  period  before  the 
present  European  war.  , 


CONTENTS 

1.  SOMETHING  FOR  NOTHING 3 

2.  THE  NECESSITY  FOR  WORK 6 

3.  THE  NEED  FOR  IMPROVEMENT 8 

4.  A  COMPREHENSIVE  VIEW  NECESSARY      ...  9 

5.  WHY  IT  is  IMPOSSIBLE  TO  TAKE  AN  ACCOUNT  OF 

,STOCK II 

6.  AN  INDICATION  OF  CONDITION 13 

7.  A  TRIAL  BALANCE 22 

8.  How  MUCH  CAN  ANY  MAN  DO  ? 25 

9.  THE  UNWARRANTED  ASSUMPTIONS  OF  MANKIND  .  27 
10.  DIAGRAMMATIC  EXPOSITION  OF  THE  PROBLEM  .      .  28 
n.  CHARITY 29 

12.  WITH  EVERY  GAIN  THERE  is  A  Loss        .      .      .35 

13.  WHAT  ARE  WE  TRYING  TO  DO? 36 

14.  SIZE  OF  THE  DEPENDENT  POPULATION     ...  43 

15.  THE  IMMIGRATION  PROBLEM 47 

16.  THE  FAILURE  OF  HYGIENE  IN  INDUSTRY        .      .  49 

17.  THE  INADEQUACY  OF  EDUCATION       .      .      .      .52 

1 8.  THE  COST  OF  LIVING 58 

19.  WASTE  PRODUCTS 58 

20.  THE  VALUES  OF  THINGS 59 

21.  KILLING  Two  BIRDS  WITH  ONE  STONE    ...  63 

22.  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 68 

xiii 


CONTENTS 

23.  THE  NECESSITY  FOR  GETTING  ALL  THE  VALUE  OUT 

OF  A  THING  WITH  THE  LEAST  HARMFUL  EFFECT 
UPON  OTHER  THINGS 69 

24.  ORGANIZED  LABOR 72 

25.  LIGHTENING  THE  PRODUCER'S  BURDEN    ...    76 

26.  THE  WEAKNESS  OF  PRISON  LABOR    .      .      .      .77 

27.  A  BUSINESS  OPPORTUNITY 78 

28.  A  HALF-TIME  COMMUNITY 80 

29.  PERIODS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  DEPRESSION       ...    83 

30.  THE  THIRTEENTH  AMENDMENT  .      ...      .87 

31.  PROFITS   FROM   INSTITUTIONS  ALREADY  PROVED 

POSSIBLE 88 

32.  AN  INDICATION  OF  THE  METHODS  OF  RE-EDUCA- 

TION   no 

33.  WHAT  SOME  INDIVIDUALS  HAVE  ALREADY  ACCOM- 

PLISHED   ,  .  116 


RE-EDUCATION 

AN  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  INSTITUTIONAL 
SYSTEM  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 


RE-EDUCATION 

i.  SOMETHING  FOR  NOTHING 

REPREHENSIBLE  it  may  be,  but  man's  desire 
to  get  as  much  as  he  can  for  little  or  for  noth- 
ing is  not  unnatural. 

The  search  for  those  lands  which  would  yield 
the  most  palatable  fruit  for  the  least  exertion 
—  the  heaviest  fish  for  the  lightest  net  —  the 
largest  crop  for  the  least  cultivation  — -was  the 
determining  factor  of  the  commercial  geog- 
raphy in  the  earliest  ages.  In  those  days,  if 
there  was  not  food  enough  for  all,  the  hungry 
ones  moved  on,  seeking  the  Indies  or  Prester 
John  —  some  land  or  government,  tales  of 
which  (slowly  carried  by  weary  traveler  or 
crawling  caravan)  sounded  ever  the  alluring 
note  of  "something  for  nothing." 

It  is  reasonable  for  men  to  seek  those  lands 
in  which  they  can  most  easily  gratify  their  de- 
sires. It  is  inevitable  that  such  lands  should 
be  sought  by  the  greatest  number. 

But  conditions,  altogether  satisfactory  when 
3 


RE-EDUCATION 

there  are  two  cocoanuts  for  each  man,  cannot 
be  maintained  when  there  are  two  men  for 
each  cocoanut.  Strife  results,  and  soon  the 
right  of  the  strongest  is  curtailed  by  "law" 
which  is  society's  first  denial  of  the  individual's 
right  to  "something  for  nothing." 

Society,  in  refusing  to  admit  the  hungry 
man's  right  to  satisfy  his  appetites  in  the 
easiest  way,  begins  a  procedure,  which,  simple 
and  obvious  at  first,  grows  rapidly  into  a  most 
complex  and  elaborate  burden  when  large 
numbers  of  men  seek  to  occupy  restricted  dis- 
tricts. This  burden  is  further  complicated  by 
the  fact  that  the  restrictions  placed  by  society 
upon  man's  desire  to  get  "something  for  noth- 
ing" tend  to  aggravate,  rather  than  to  over- 
come the  desire  itself. 

A  certain  proportion  of  a  population  always 
revolts  at  the  restrictions  put  upon  privileges 
and  property  which  were  expected  to  be 
"free."  Society  is  obliged  to  bribe  or  to  coerce 
the  revolting  members  in  order  to  maintain 
itself. 

If  society  admits  an  obligation  to  the  hungry 
man  when  denying  his  right  to  take  "some- 

4 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

thing  for  nothing,"  —  that  is,  the  obligation  of 
feeding  him  while  under  restraint,  —  the  man 
has  in  reality  got  what  he  sought  —  food. 
And,  while  in  a  sense  he  has  "paid"  for  it,  his 
payment  is  not  in  the  form  of  productive  work 
but  of  resistance.  And,  while  resistance  is 
sometimes  of  value,  in  this  case  it  only  increases 
the  burden  of  the  institution  society  endeavors 
to  maintain.  Revolt  (resistance)  against  the 
restrictions  put,  not  only  upon  property,  but 
also  upon  health  and  morals,  is  almost  the 
only  result  of  the  present  system. 

A  community,  rich  in  money,  of  a  high 
grade  of  intelligence,  and  with  a  sincere  chari- 
table impulse,  takes  justifiable  pride  in  the  in- 
stitutions which  it  provides  for  those  of  its 
members  who  refuse  to  live  up  to  its  standards. 
JBut  the  endeavor  to  make  its  corrective  or 
curative  processes  as  efficacious  as  possible 
often  leads  not  only  to  a  high  state  of  excel- 
lence (so  far  as  the  institutions  themselves  are 
concerned),  but  also  to  a  life  which  is  accepted 
by  those  in  revolt  as  a  satisfactory  substitute 
for  that  which  they  are  compelled  to  renounce. 

Tales  of  such  institutions  are  carried  over 
5 


RE-EDUCATION 

the  earth  (no  longer  by  slow  caravan)  and  are 
listened  to  by  the  hungry  ones  of  other  lands. 
These  malcontents,  having  no  understanding 
of  the  significance  of  the  institutions,  instinc- 
tively regard  them  as  on  a  plane  with  the 
fruits  of  the  Indies  and  the  gold  of  Prester 
John.  They  consider  the  institutions  founded 
and  maintained  for  cure  and  correction  as,  in 
themselves,  being  "something  for  nothing." 

2.  THE  NECESSITY  FOR  WORK 

What  we  mean  by  "life"  is  energy  made 
manifest  in  matter:  "death"  is  merely  the 
result  of  a  transference  of  power.  If  one  ma- 
chine is  idle,  it  is  only  because  the  power  is 
being  used  in  another  part  of  this  great  plant 
we  call "  the  world."  Steam  is  always  kept  up. 
No  living  creature  —  man,  beast,  fish,  bird, 
or  insect  —  ever  has  existed,  or  possibly  can 
exist,  upon  this  earth  without  the  performance 
of  an  amount  of  work  (the  expenditure  of  an 
amount  of  energy)  equivalent  to  the  value 
of  the  commodities  consumed  by  that  being. 
The  mulley  cow,  contentedly  chewing  her  cud, 
the  hunter  for  orchids  or  edelweiss,  the  picker 

6 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

of  Eve's  first  fig  leaf,  the  producer  of  the  latest 
Worth  model,  the  honey  bee,  and  the  steel 
trust  have  all  energized  according  to  the  value 
of  the  commodities  consumed.  If  the  amount 
of  work  necessary  for  self-support  is  not  done 
by  the  being  himself,  it  must  be  done  for  him 
by  other  beings. 

Therefore,  when  we  find  a  society  caring 
for  a  large  number  of  dependents,  and  devot- 
ing a  very  considerable  proportion  of  its  time, 
energy,  and  money  to  their  support,  it  is  not 
impertinent  to  consider:  — 
Why  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  popula- 
tion is  dependent; 

For  what  professed,  and  for  what  true 
reason,  this  dependent  class  is  being  sup- 
ported; 

Whether  the  methods  employed  are  showing 
a  sufficient  improvement  in  social  condi- 
tions as  a  whole  to  justify  their  continu- 
ance or  development; 
Whether  the  institutions  are  so  founded  as 

to  insure  permanence; 
Who  is  doing  the  extra  work  necessary  for 
the  support  of  these  dependents; 
7 


RE-EDUCATION 

Whether  these  individuals  will  be  able  to 
continue  that  support 

1st,  as  under  existing  conditions; 

2d,  according  to  the  ratio  of  growth; 

If  it  appears  that  they  cannot  continue  that 
support,  how  can  such  change  be  made 
with  the  least  waste  to  the  existing  or- 
i  ganizations? 

3.  THE  NEED  FOR  IMPROVEMENT 

Judging  from  the  utterances  of  the  press, 
the  lecture  platform,  and  the  pulpit,  it  seems 
that  the  vast  majority  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  —  even  of  the  thinking  classes 
—  consider  the  institutions  of  our  country  as 
being  not  only  satisfactory,  but  permanent. 

The  popular  opinion  is  that  our  institu- 
tions are  making  very  considerable  headway 
against  the  onslaught  of  sin,  insanity,  and 
disease,  if,  indeed,  they  are  not  entirely  over- 
coming them.  That  opinion  is  not  shared  by 
the  individuals  most  closely  in  touch  with  the 
actual  conditions  of  our  corrective  and  cura- 
tive endeavors. 

The  first  division  of  my  effort  will  be  to 
8 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

show  in  simple  terms  what  the  actual  condi- 
tion of  our  institutional  system  is,  and  what 
we  may  expect  it  to  be  if  the  fundamental  laws 
of  physics  and  of  finance  hold  true. 

4.  A  COMPREHENSIVE  VIEW  NECESSARY 

It  seems  that,  up  to  the  present,  society  has 
regarded  only  the  different  elements  —  that  is, 
each  separately  —  which  made  up  its  institu- 
tional system  as  a  whole.  The  prison,  the 
hospital,  each  branch  of  dependent  life,  has 
received  careful  and  elaborate  analysis,  inves- 
tigation, and,  in  general,  well-deserved  praise. 

But  society  should  consider  not  only  whether 
this  or  that  particular  branch  is  economically 
fulfilling  its  obligations.  It  should  also  con- 
sider whether  or  not  the  sum  total  of  all  the 
efforts  of  these  different  factors  is  producing 
a  change  in  the  life  of  society,  outside  of  the  in- 
stitutions, of  sufficient  importance  to  justify 
the  total  effort.  For,  if  our  system  is  what  we 
like  to  believe,  it  is  not  enough  to  glory  in  the 
fact  that  the  searing-iron,  the  ball  and  chain, 
and  the  belt  and  bracelets  have  given  way  to 
more  humane  methods  of  treatment.  Nor  is  it 

9 


RE-EDUCATION 

enough  to  consider  a  decrease  in  the  per-capita 
cost  of  maintenance  as  a  proof  of  economical 
administration. 

Statistics  are  inadequate  for  the  expression 
of  our  institutional  condition,  especially  when 
regarded  as  a  whole.  Tables  of  figures,  by  in- 
creasing or  decreasing,  do  not  show  the  value 
of  a  given  institution  to  society. 

The  chemical  equation  is  the  only  one  now 
in  common  use  which  could  be  used  to  show 
the  result  of  the  institutional  system.  For  ex- 
ample, by  decreasing  the  impurities  of  the  in- 
gredients of  a  mixture  of  chemicals  —  even  to 
a  condition  of  purity  —  we  do  not  eliminate  a 
poison  (if  such  is  one  of  the  resultants  of  the 
chemical  action  of  those  ingredients);  and 
while  that  poison  may  be  less  impure,  owing 
to  the  better  ingredients  used,  it  is,  for  the 
same  reason,  a  more  powerful  poison.  In  other 
words,  we  are  improving  each  of  the  separate 
divisions  of  our  institutional  system :  but  we 
are  forming  and  liberating  a  condition  of 
pauperism  which  is  increased  —  and  not  de- 
creased —  as  we  improve  each  separate  insti- 
tution. 

10 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

5.  WHY  IT  IS  IMPOSSIBLE  TO  TAKE  AN 
ACCOUNT  OF  STOCK 

When  a  business  man  is  in  difficulty,  or 
foresees  difficulty,  he  takes  an  account  of 
stock  in  order  to  find  out  what  he  has  and 
where  he  stands.  In  the  business  world  large 
amounts  of  time,  money,  and  energy  are  con- 
sidered well  spent  in  the  careful  consideration 
of  just  what  is  succeeding,  and  what  is  failing, 
and  why.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  re- 
organization of  a  business  could  be  effected  if 
it  was  impossible  to  take  stock. 

But  correctly  to  determine  the  efficacy  of 
the  different  institutions  devoted  to  depend- 
ents and  to  curative  and  corrective  processes, 
is  an  undertaking  doomed  at  present  to  fail- 
ure. It  is  impossible  to  figure,  with  any  degree 
of  accuracy,  what  is  the  result  of  these  insti- 
tutions, or  what  is  the  total  cost  to  the  United 
States  for  the  care  of  its  dependents.  It  would 
be  possible  to  describe  a  nail  or  a  turning- 
lathe  in  simple  language.  But  it  would  be 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  describe  a  screw 
—  much  more  a  screw  machine  —  in  anything 

ii 


RE-EDUCATION 

but  complicated  language,  because  their  very 
essence  is  complex.  And  our  institutional 
system  is  one  of  the  most  complex  machines 
ever  conceived  by  man.  No  amount  of  re- 
search can  overcome  the  fact  that  there  is  no 
standard  of  records,  often  among  like  institu- 
tions in  the  same  State.  The  institutional 
years  begin  at  different  dates;  and  institutions 
of  the  same  class  interpret  definitions  vari- 
ously. Even  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  the 
United  States  Government,  while  possessing 
vast  stores  of  useful  information  upon  the 
subject,  has  never  issued  such  figures  as  would 
make  the  amount  of  total  expenditures  alone 
possible  to  determine.1  The  Government  it- 
self would  be  unable  to  get  correct  figures  re- 
lating to  certain  phases  of  the  work  of  some 
institutions  maintained  as  private  charities. 

And,  even  if  it  could,  such  figures  of  ex- 
pense, population,  or  assumed  cure  would  not 
show  the  total  value  of  the  institution  to 
society.  In  other  words,  we  cannot  take  account 
oj  stock.  However  interesting  to  a  few,  to  give 

1  Benevolent  Institutions,  Introduction,  pp.  11-13. 
U.S.  Department  of  Commerce,  Bureau  of  Census,  1910. 

12 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

all  the  figures  and  tables  relating  to  each  phase 
of  our  dependent  life  would  make  the  subject 
so  involved  as  to  be  beyond  the  comprehen- 
sion of  one  not  already  intimately  acquainted 
with  that  subject. 

But  while  the  work  of  the  different  institu- 
tions (as  between  the  insane  asylum  and  the 
foundlings'  home)  is  very  unlike,  there  is  a 
sufficient  similarity  existing  between  the  es- 
sence of  their  endeavors  to  justify  the  belief 
that  an  analysis  of  one  will  be,  for  the  purpose 
of  elementary  consideration,  a  criterion  for  the 
others.  Fortunately,  for  the  purposes  of  this 
investigation,  the  figures  of  one  department  of 
dependent  life  will  be  a  sufficient  indication  of 
what  the  whole  must  be,  if,  indeed,  they  alone 
will  not  justify  conclusions  which  are  to  be 
drawn. 

6.  AN  INDICATION  OF  CONDITION 

One  of  the  institutions  with  which  the 
public  is  best  acquainted  —  with  whose  work 
it  is  most  properly  satisfied  —  is  the  hospital. 
While  it  is  notorious  that  hospital  figures  are 
difficult  to  obtain,  certain  authoritative  fig- 

13 


RE-EDUCATION 

ures  upon  the  hospitals  have  been  formulated; 
and  to  those,  for  the  moment  at  all  events,  we 
shall  confine  our  inquiry. 

In  the  Salutatory  published  in  the  first 
number  of  "The  Modern  Hospital,"  was  the 
following  statement :  — 

"There  are  in  the  United  States  6665  insti- 
tutions of  record  for  the  care  of  the  sick,  with 
a  total  capacity  of  more  than  600,000  beds. 
By  a  modest  estimate,  these  huge  figures 
represent  a  money  investment  in  land,  build- 
ings, and  equipment  of  not  less  than  $1,500,- 
000,000,  and  an  annual  outlay  for  maintenance 
approaching  $250,000,000. 

"On  the  human  side,  there  are  more  than 
100,000  trustees  l  of  hospitals,  and  more  than 
65,000  physicians  2  on  hospital  medical  staffs. 
About  10,000,000  men  and  women  contrib- 
ute annually  to  hospital  funds,  and  approxi- 

1  A  figure  fixed  by  law  as  the  maximum  of  a  standing 
army  considered  until  recently  sufficient  for  the  protection 
of  its  interests  along  borders  longer  than  that  of  almost  any 
other  country  on  earth. 

2  A  number  nearly  twice  that  of  all  the  civil  service 
positions  (33,464  —  World  Almanac,  1916,  p.  168)  neces- 
sary for  the  running  of  the  Federal  Government  in  the  city 
of  Washington. 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

mately  9,000,000  men,  women,  and  children 
are  patients  in  the  hospitals  in  the  course  of 
each  year. 

"The  hospital,  in  its  broader  sense  and  in 
its  many  aspects,  has  already  become  a  power- 
ful influence  on  society,  if  indeed  it  is  not  now 
the  chief  factor  in  a  process  of  remoulding  and 
remaking  the  modern  social  fabric;  its  benign 
influence  must  be  exerted  in  the  future  to  di- 
vert the  attention  of  the  people  away  from  the 
sordid  pursuit  of  personal  gain  and  selfish 
pleasure,  and  into  an  atmosphere  pervaded  by 
higher  motives  and  more  altruistic  ambitions. 
But  as  yet  there  has  been  no  welding  together 
of  the  forces  and  influences  that,  even  working 
separately  and  oftentimes  in  diverse  directions, 
have  such  magnificent  results.  What  may, 
then,  be  expected  if  all  these  agencies  can  be 
correlated  and  harmonized,  and  made  to  pro- 
gress in  one  direction  and  toward  a  common 
beneficent  goal  ? 

66  There  is  so  much  to  be  done.  By  common 
consent,  based  upon  the  needs  of  the  time,  it 
is  decreed  that  there  shall  be  a  bed  in  a  good 
hospital  for  every  sick  and  hurt  man,  woman, 


RE-EDUCATION 

and  child,  and  that  every  resource  of  medical 
skill,  seconded  by  the  highest  order  of  trained 
nursing,  and  aided  by  all  the  arts  and  sciences, 
shall  be  at  the  service  of  rich  and  poor  for 
the  cure  of  disease.  But  it  is  no  longer  enough 
that  those  who  can  shall  merely  help  to  cure 
disease;  the  time  is  come  when  the  prevention 
of  disease  looms  larger  than  the  cure,  and  in 
this  field  the  hospital  must  show  the  way, 
again  by  the  aid  of  the  sciences  and  the  arts, 
directed  along  the  lines  of  hygiene,  sanitation, 
pure  living,  and  right  thinking. 

"Even  here  the  hospital  finds  no  pause. 
Men  were  not  born  free  and  equal ;  the  scales 
of  justice  have  not  weighed  for  all  alike;  the 
gentle  dews  of  heaven  have  not  rained  down 
upon  the  just  and  the  unjust  in  even  portions; 
and  so  it  becomes  the  task  of  to-day  and  the 
duty  of  the  hospital,  again  in  its  larger  sense, 
to  help  overcome  the  irregularities  of  birth- 
right, to  even  the  balances  that  have  weighed 
so  badly,  and  to  bring  to  the  lowly  and  the 
oppressed  the  beneficences  of  Faith,  Hope, 
and  Charity." 

This  Salutatory  was  written,  and  the  figures 
16 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

were  compiled  by  one  of  the  editors,1  ad- 
mittedly the  highest  authority  upon  the  sub- 
ject. They  were  accepted  by  the  Committee  on 
Hospital  Efficiency  of  the  Philadelphia  County 
Medical  Society  in  its  reports  of  June  17  and 
November  26,  1913,  and  October  21,  1914. 
They  are  greatly  in  excess  of  the  figures  given 
by  the  United  States  Government,2  owing 
probably  to  the  fact  that  the  Government  was 
obliged  to  depend  entirely  upon  the  figures 
given  in  the  returns,  while  Dr.  Hornsby  gave 
special  consideration  to  each  individual  hos- 
pital. But  while  the  figures  of  "The  Modern 
Hospital"  are  larger  than  those  of  the  Bureau 
of  Statistics,  they  are  not  greatly  in  excess  of 
those  determined  by  the  Federal  Commission 
on  Industrial  Relations. 

Another  careful  observer  and  deep  student, 
Dr.  Gilman  Thompson,  has  made  investiga- 
tions tending  to  show  that  those  figures,  al- 
though terrifying,  are  not  far  from  correct.3 

But  though  the  practice  of  sending  the  sick 

1  Dr.  John  A.  Hornsby. 

2  World  Almanac,  1915,  p.  291. 

3  W.  Gilman  Thompson,  M.D.,  The  Occupational  Dis- 
eases, p.  6. 

17 


RE-EDUCATION 

of  all  classes  of  society  to  hospitals  is  growing 
rapidly,  there  is  still  a  large  percentage  of 
sickness  cared  for  in  the  home.  And  if  we 
accept  those  authoritative  figures  as  correct, 
and  anything  approximating  one  tenth  of  our 
total  population  is  dependent  from  sickness 
alone,  some  idea  can  be  formed  of  what  the 
total  number  would  be  if  we  include  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  dependent  out  of  our 
one  hundred  million  population.  Surely,  this 
is  a  condition  of  which  any  business  man 
should  take  cognizance. 

"June,  1910,  was  signalized  by  the  meeting 
in  Chicago  of  the  first  National  Conference  on 
Industrial  Diseases,  and  in  a  memorial  sent 
to  President  Taft  by  this  Conference  it  was 
stated  that  there  occur  annually  in  the  United 
States  13,400,000  cases  of  sickness  among  ar- 
tisans and  craftsmen,  many  of  which  are 
attributable  to  occupation  hazards,  involving 
a  total  annual  economic  loss  of  nearly  three 
fourths  of  a  billion  dollars." 1 
*  It  is  stated  in  the  Bulletin  of  the  Univer- 

f<  »  W.  Oilman  Thompson,  M.D.,  The  Occupational  Dis- 
eases, p.  6. 

18 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

sity  of  the  State  of  New  York  (no.  621, 
August,  1916,  p.  8) :  — 

"The  economic  loss  from  accidental  deaths 
and  injuries  is  nearly  $500,000,000  annually. 

"We  waste  $772,000,000  annually  in  loss  of 
income  due  to  industrial  diseases,  that  is,  dis- 
eases which  attack  workers  on  account  of  the 
nature  of  their  employment  and  the  unsan- 
itary conditions  in  which  the  work  is  car- 
ried on." 

And  this  is  showing  only  such  classified  as 
occupational  diseases  and  hazards.  This  does 
not  include  the  loss  caused  by  ordinary  sick- 
ness. The  Federal  Commission  on  Industrial 
Relations  gives  annually  35,000  fatalities,  and 
700,000  injuries  involving  disability  of  over 
four  weeks,  as  the  figures  due  to  occupational 
disability.1 

That  Commission  estimates  that  each  one  of 
the  "wage-earners  in  the  United  States  loses 
an  average  of  nine  days  a  year  through  sick- 
ness. At  an  average  of  two  dollars  a  day,  the 
wage  loss  from  this  source  is  over  $500,000,000. 

1  Final  Report  of  Commission  on  Industrial  Rflationst 
P-95- 

19 


RE-EDUCATION 

At  the  average  cost  of  medical  expenses  (six 
dollars  per  capita  per  year)  there  is  added  to 
this  at  the  very  least  $180,000,000."  l 

This  annual  loss  of  $680,000,000  to  $1,272,- 
000,000  must  be  added  to  the  cost  of  main- 
taining the  hospitals.  For  society  has  not  only 
to  pay  for  the  maintenance  of  the  sick  man, 
but  also  to  bear  the  loss  of  his  product,  the 
value  of  which  should  consequently  be  added 
to  the  cost  of  maintaining  the  hospital  as  be- 
ing a  charge  attributable  to  the  same  cause 
(sickness),  so  far  as  society  is  concerned. 

Accepting  the  report  of  the  Federal  Com- 
mission, the  most  authoritative  word  upon  the 
subject,  we  see  that  two  items — that  is,  the  loss 
of  product  and  the  cost  of  medical  expenses  — 
involve  a  loss  of  $680,000,000  a  year.  But  this 
is  not  capital  —  this  is  annual  outlay.  It  does 
not  even  include  depreciation,  and  it  would  be 
the  interest  at  five  per  cent  upon  $13,600,- 
000,000. 2 

Taking  the  figures  already  given,  as  au- 

1  Final  Report  of  Commission  on  Industrial  Relations ; 
p.  202. 

2  The  estimated  wealth  of  the  country  in  1912  was 
$187,000,000,000.  Ibid.,  p.  9. 

20 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

thorized  by  the  University  of  the  State  of 
New  York,  $772,000,000  and  $500,000,000, 
and  adding  to  this  the  cost  of  maintaining  the 
hospitals  at  $250,000,000,  and  regarding  that 
total  as  the  interest  upon  the  capital  required, 
results  in  a  figure  which  I  am  not  afraid  but 
ashamed  to  use. 

The  smaller  figures  of  the  Federal  Commis- 
sion, of  $500,000,000  and  $180,000,000,  and 
the  estimate  of  $250,000,000  required  to  main- 
tain the  hospitals,  have  been  selected  as  suffi- 
cient to  give  an  idea  of  what  the  total  cost 
of  our  entire  dependent  population  is  for  all 
prisons,  insane  asylums,  delinquent  homes,  in- 
stitutions for  the  blind,  deaf,  dumb,  crippled^ 
epileptic,  aged,  poor,  feeble-minded,  infants, 
dipsomaniacs,  and  the  whole  range  of  infec- 
tious and  contagious  diseases  from  tubercu- 
losis to  leprosy,  —  in  addition  to  all  the  other 
ills  of  man. 

The  rate  of  increase  of  hospitals  alone  pre- 
vious to  the  war  was  one  thousand  a  year. 

"Until  the  war  broke  out  there  were  being 
constructed  in  the  country  approximately 
one  thousand  hospitals  a  year  for  the  past 

21 


RE-EDUCATION 

three  years;  this  would  include  considerable 
extensions  to  already  existing  hospitals,  such 
as  new  wings.  A  great  many  of  these  new 
hospitals  were  state  hospitals,  running  into 
the  thousands  of  beds  each,  and  municipal 
hospitals  running  into  several  hundred  beds 
each;  so  that  I  think  it  fair  to  say  that  these 
improvements  would  average  a  hundred  beds 
per  hospital.  A  fair  estimate  of  the  cost  of 
these  hospitals  would  be  about  two  thousand 
dollars  per  bed ;  very  few  of  them  are  built  for 
that.  That  would  make  each  hospital  cost 
$200,000,  or  a  total  of  $200,000,000  per  year. 
These  figures  are  not  being  reached  just  now 
on  account  of  the  war,  but  they  will  be  more 
than  made  up  when  the  financial  situation  im- 
proves, because  undoubtedly,  we  are  at  the 
dawn  of  a  great  hospital  era.  .  .  ."  l 

In  other  words,  we  are  carrying  an  enor- 
mous "dead  capital,"  much  of  which  could  be 
liberated. 

7.  A  TRIAL  BALANCE 

Whatever  the  total  number  of  dependents 
is,  that  number  will  approximate  ten  millions, 

1  Personal  letter  from  Dr.  Hornsby. 
22 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

ten  per  cent  of  the  entire  population.  This 
figure  itself  is  sufficiently  large  materially  to 
decrease  the  number  of  wage-earners  l  in  the 
United  States. 

But  all  wage-earners  are  not  producers,2  and 
upon  the  producer  must  eventually  fall  the 
burden  of  maintenance.  It  is  difficult  to  draw 
accurately  the  line  between  the  wage-earner 
and  the  producer.  Rather  than  introduce  any 
contention  as  to  the  classification  of  any  par- 
ticular labor,  I  accept  this  number  (twenty- 
five  millions)  of  wage-earners  as  being  the 
number  of  producers. 

Even  then  we  have  to  face  the  fact  that 
twenty-five  per  cent  of  our  population  is  not 

1  Twenty  millions  to  twenty-five  millions.  (Final  Report 
of  the  Commission  on  Industrial  Relations,  p.  2.) 

2  "A  distinct  classification  adopted  by  the  United  States 
Census  Bureau  based  on  1910  Census  is  as  follows:  All 
occupations,  38,167,336   (consisting  of   30,091,564  males 
and  8,075,772  females)  with  per  cent  in  parentheses  show- 
ing distribution  of  total.  Agriculture,  forestry,  and  animal 
husbandry,    12,659,203    (33.2);    extraction    of    minerals, 
964,824  (2.5);  manufacturing  and  mechanical  industries, 
10,658,881   (27.9);  transportation,  2,637,671  (6.9);  trade, 
3,614,670  (9.5);  public  service  (not  elsewhere  classified), 
459,291    (1.2);  professional  service,   1,663,569   (4.4);  do- 
mestic and  personal  service,  3,772,174  (9.9);  clerical  occu- 
pations, 1,737,053  (4.6)."   (World  Almanac,  1916,  p.  125.) 

23 


RE-EDUCATION 

only  producing  for  its  own  maintenance,  for 
the  sixty-five  per  cent  who  are  not  producers, 
for  all  the  expenses  of  the  Government,  for  all 
the  innumerable  pensions1  which  are  now 
being  granted,  for  all  churches2  and  foreign 
missionaries,3  but  also  expending  huge  sums 
for  the  benefit  of  the  future  in  scientific  re- 
search and  education  4  and  for  social  better- 
ment, etc.  Furthermore,  they  are  carrying 
this  additional  and  increasing  burden  of  ten 
per  cent  of  total  population  as  parasites.  And 
this  in  face  of  the  fact  "that  seventy-nine 
per  cent  of  the  fathers  of  these  families  earned 
less  than  seven  hundred  dollars  per  year,"  and 
that,  "in  brief,  only  one  fourth  of  these  fathers 
could  have  supported  their  families  on  the 
barest  subsistence  level  without  the  earnings 

1  United    States    Government   pensions    (1915   only), 
$165,518,266.  (World  Almanac,  1916,  p.  152.) 

2  Number  of  churches  in  United  States,  1914,  225,486. 
(World  Almanac,  1916,  p.  517.) 

3  Number  of   foreign   missionaries   sent   from   United 
States,  1916,  10,048;  annual  income  of  boards  and  societies 
in  United  States,  1916,  $19,264,977.  (Personal  letter  from 
Secretary  Foreign  Missions  Conference  of  North  America.) 

4  Number  of  school-teachers  in  United  States,   1914, 
701,507.    (Bureau  of  Statistics,  prepared  for  World  Al- 
manac, 1916,  pp.  581-85.) 

24 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

of  other  members  of  the  family  or  income 
from  outside  sources." l 

We  send  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  to 
the  distressed  and  orphaned  of  Europe,  ship 
off  cargoes  of  coal  and  grain  and  hospital  sup- 
plies: and  that  at  the  very  hour  when  the 
producer  himself  is  cold,  and  hundreds  of 
women  with  infants  assail  the  New  York  City 
Hall,  crying  for  bread !  The  religious  fanatic 
may  believe  that  such  a  course  will  perpetuate 
a  great,  free,  prosperous  country.  The  busi- 
ness man  should  not  —  the  economist  cannot 
believe  such  to  be  true. 

8.  HOW  MUCH  CAN  ANY  MAN  DO? 

Let  us  suppose  that  an  individual  is  self- 
supporting,  that  he  is  able,  without  help,  to 
take  care  of  himself  and  of  his  immediate 
family.  His  neighbor  falling  sick,  he  may  be 
able  to  care  for  his  neighbor  also  and  his 
neighbor's  family,  with  extra  work  and  econ- 
omy, —  and  another  neighbor,  —  all  the  peo- 
ple in  his  village.  Perhaps  he  may  be  so  strong 

1  Final  Report  of  the  Commission  on  Industrial  Relations, 
p.  n. 

25 


RE-EDUCATION 

that  he  can  support  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  his  State.  But,  somewhere  or  other, 
there  is  a  limit  to  the  amount  which  he  can  do, 
no  matter  how  hard  he  strives,  no  matter  how 
earnestly  he  prays  to  Heaven  for  extra  strength 
and  grace. 

Irrespective  of  where  that  limit  is,  what  will 
become  of  the  institutions  when  that  limit  is 
reached  ? 

Is  our  whole  wonderful  system,  of  which  we 
have  been  so  proud,  doomed  to  extinc- 
tion? 

Would  the  organizations  disintegrate? 
Would  the  thousands  of  superb  plants  be 

scrapped? 

Would  the  enormous  amounts  of  time, 
energy,  and  money  invested  in  them  be 
thrown  away? 

If  not,  what  departments  would  be  discon- 
tinued for  the  sake  of  maintaining  what 
other  departments? 

Would  our  universities,  our  asylums,  or 
our  hospitals  be  the  first  abandoned, 
and  for  what  reason  should  they  be  the 
first? 

26 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

What  effect  would  be  produced  upon  the 
minds  of  the  people  if  they  were  forced  to 
realize  that  the  institutions  regarded  as 
safe,  necessary,  impregnable,  and  perfect 
could  no  longer  be  maintained  ? 
The  condition  would  be  so  chaotic  as  to  be 
terrifying  to  the  bravest  mind,  puzzling  to  the 
most  intelligent  one. 

Our  charitable  impulses,  combined  with  a 
certain  childish  pride  in  maintaining  our  repu- 
tation for  charity,  have  enabled  a  great  many, 
not  only  of  the  alien,but  of  the  native  shirkers, 
to  exist  in  a  condition  of  luxury.  For  it  should 
be  remembered  that  sufficient  food,  of  what- 
ever quality,  and  protection  from  the  weather 
are  luxuries  to  a  large  percentage  of  humanity. 
Every  winter  there  are  a  large  number  of  in- 
dividuals who  commit  misdemeanors  for  the 
sole  reason  of  being  kept  through  the  winter 
in  our  jails. 

9.  THE  UNWARRANTED  ASSUMPTIONS  OF 
MANKIND 

Man  has  no  justification  for  assuming  a  con- 
genital right  to  food,  to  health,  or  to  happi- 

27 


RE-EDUCATION 

ness.  No  being  can  have  food  without  working 
for  it  —  or  by  having  it  given  to  him  by  some 
one  who  has  worked  for  it :  no  being  can  have 
health  except  by  the  understanding  and  prac- 
tice of  his  abilities  and  his  limitations :  no  be- 
ing can  have  happiness  as  a  gift,  but  only  by 
energizing  in  the  direction  of  the  coincidence 
of  his  interests  and  his  possibilities. 

10.  DIAGRAMMATIC  EXPOSITION  OF  THE 
PROBLEM 

Diagrammatically  expressed,  our  institu- 
tional system  can  best  be  shown  by  its  like- 
ness to  a  gigantic  top,  having  no  foundation, 
and  maintaining  its  upright  position  only  so 
long  as  it  is  whipped  into  rapid  motion.  If  for  a 
single  year  our  doctors,  our  clergymen,  our  so- 
cial workers,  our  philanthropic  citizens  should 
by  ceasing  to  agitate  society  fail  to  provide 
the  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  necessary, 
this  huge,  top-shaped  institutional  system  of 
ours  would  topple  over  and  roll  into  the  ditch, 
because  the  whole  system  does  not  deliver, 
as  a  finished  product,  an  adequate  number 
of  individuals  in  a  short  enough  time,  made 

28 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

competent  by  their  treatment,  to  provide  a 
necessary  interest  upon  the  capital  invested. 
Capital  must  not  only  pay  interest  upon  it- 
self; it  must  reproduce  itself  in  order  to 
maintain  its  integrity.  For  the  annual  allow- 
ance for  "depreciation,"  which  is  necessary 
before  legitimate  interest  can  be  paid,  is  only 
capital  reproducing  itself.  With  a  rather  ex- 
haustive search,  I  have  found  but  four  in- 
stitutions l  which  can  even  pay  their  running 
expenses  —  let  alone  depreciation,  interest, 
surplus,  or  reserve.  And  if  our  system  cannot 
do  that,  and  also  fails  to  return  the  depend- 
ents more  competent  from  their  period  of  in- 
carceration, what  is  the  real  reason  for  sup- 
porting them? 

n.  CHARITY 

I  should  be  glad  to  be  relieved  of  the  neces- 
sity of  discussing  the  subject  of  charity. 

I  said  above  that  our  institutional  system, 
diagrammatically  expressed,  resembled  a  top. 
But  if  I  introduce  the  top,  it  is  necessary  for 

1  The  Detroit  House  of  Correction,  the  Maryland  Peni- 
tentiary, the  Stillwater  (Minnesota)  State  Prison,  and  an 
apprentice  school  (name  withheld  by  request). 

29 


RE-EDUCATION 

me  to  admit  the  peg  upon  which  the  top 
spins.  That  peg  is  the  doctrine  of  brotherly 
love.  The  sages  before  the  Christian  era  had 
already  speculated  upon  the  possible  results  of 
the  development  of  this  theory  of  brotherly 
love. 

Chuang  Tzu,1  writing  in  the  third  or  fourth 
century  B.C.,  says:  — 

"He  who  would  attain  to  such  perfection 
never  loses  sight  of  the  natural  conditions  of 
his  existence.  With  him  the  joined  is  not 
united,  nor  the  separated  apart,  nor  the  long 
in  excess,  nor  the  short  wanting.  For  just  as  a 
duck's  legs,  though  short,  cannot  be  length- 
ened without  pain  to  the  duck,  and  a  crane's 
legs,  though  long,  cannot  be  shortened  with- 
out misery  to  the  crane,  so  that  which  is  long 
in  man's  moral  nature  cannot  be  cut  off,  nor 
that  which  is  short  be  lengthened.  All  sorrow 
is  thus  avoided. 

"Intentional  charity  and  intentional  duty 
to  one's  neighbor  are  surely  not  included  in  our 
moral  nature.  Yet  what  sorrow  these  have  in- 

1  Translated  from  the  Chinese  by  Herbert  A.  Giles, 
pp.  101-02. 

30 


•OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

volved.  Divide  your  joined  toes  and  you  will 
howl :  bite  off  your  extra  finger  and  you  will 
scream.  In  one  case  there  is  too  much,  in  the 
other  too  little;  but  the  sorrow  is  the  same. 
And  the  charitable  of  the  age  go  about  sorrow- 
ing over  the  ills  of  the  age,  while  the  non- 
charitable  cut  through  the  natural  conditions 
of  things  in  their  greed  after  place  and  wealth. 
Surely  then  intentional  charity  and  duty  to 
one's  neighbor  are  not  included  in  our  moral 
nature.  Yet  from  the  time  of  the  Three 
Dynasties  downwards  what  a  fuss  has  been 
made  about  them! 

"Those  who  cannot  make  perfect  without 
arc,  line,  compasses,  and  square,  injure  the 
natural  constitution  of  things.  Those  who  re- 
quire cords  to  bind  and  glue  to  stick,  interfere 
with  the  natural  functions  of  things.  And 
those  who  seek  to  satisfy  the  mind  of  man  by 
hampering  with  ceremonies  and  music  and 
preaching  charity  and  duty  to  one's  neighbor, 
thereby  destroy  the  intrinsicality  of  things. 

"For  such  intrinsicality  does  exist,  in  this 
sense :  —  Things  which  are  curved  require  no 
arcs;  things  which  are  straight  require  no  lines; 


RE-EDUCATION" 

things  which  are  round  require  no  compasses; 
things  which  are  rectangular  require  no 
squares;  things  which  stick  require  no  glue; 
things  which  hold  together  require  no  cords. 
And  just  as  all  things  are  produced,  and  none 
can  tell  how  they  are  produced,  so  do  all 
things  possess  their  own  intrinsic  qualities  and 
none  can  tell  how  they  possess  them.  From 
time  immemorial  this  has  always  been  so, 
without  variation.  Why  then  should  charity 
and  duty  to  one's  neighbor  be  as  it  were  glued 
or  corded  on,  and  introduced  into  the  domain 
of  Tao,  to  give  rise  to  doubt  among  mankind  ? 

"Lesser  doubts  change  the  rule  of  life; 
greater  doubts  change  man's  nature. 

"How  do  we  know  this?  By  the  fact  that 
ever  since  the  time  when  Shun  bid  for  charity 
and  duty  to  one's  neighbor  in  order  to  secure 
the  empire,  men  have  devoted  their  lives  to 
the  pursuit  thereof.  Is  it  not  then  charity 
and  duty  to  one's  neighbor  which  change  the 
nature  of  man?" 

It  is  far  from  my  purpose  to  attack  the  doc- 
trine of  brotherly  love.  An  unbiased,  critical 
analysis  of  the  development  of  our  institu- 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

tional  system,  and  of  its  effects  upon  society  at 
large,  forces  me,  however,  to  the  conclusion 
that  either,  first,  Christ  was  wrong;  second,  his 
doctrine  is  unfitted  for  the  industrial  age  in 
which  we  live;  or,  third,  HIS  DOCTRINE  is  BEING 

MISINTERPRETED. 

Since  the  beginning  of  Protestantism  the 
parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan  has  been 
accepted  as  the  fundamental  upon  which  hu- 
man institutions  should  rest.  That  it  may  be 
the  parable  of  greatest  significance  may  or 
may  not  be  true.  I  know  of  no  way  by  which 
it  could  be  proved  or  disproved.  But  though 
it  may  be  the  greatest,  it  is  not  the  only  word 
of  our  Lord  upon  the  subject  of  charity;  and  I 
cannot  see  that  any  one  has  the  authority  or 
the  right  to  take  the  parable  of  the  Good 
Samaritan  as  the  final  and  complete  exposi- 
tion of  man's  duty  to  his  neighbor. 

The  best  authority  x  gives  the  expense  of 
running  the  hospital  alone  as  $250,000,000  a 
year.  Another  high  authority  2  has  admitted 

1  The  Modern  Hospital 

2  Introduction  to  Philadelphia  County  Medical  Society 
Report,  June  17  and  November  26,  1913,  October  21, 
1914. 

33 


RE-EDUCATION 

that  fully  twenty  per  cent  of  this,  or  $50,000,- 
ooo  a  year,  is  waste. 

An  annual  expenditure  of  $250,000,000  is 
nearly  five  times  the  gross  income  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad.1  With  all  contentions  for 
charity  allowed,  our  hospitals  alone  involve  an 
amount  of  business  probably  greater  than  that 
of  any  other  business  in  the  world. 

With  all  respect,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered :  — 

"And  when  they  were  come,  they  say  unto 
him,  Master,  we  know  that  thou  art  true,  and 
carest  for  no  man :  for  thou  regardest  not  the 
person  of  men,  but  teachest  the  way  of  God 
in  truth :  Is  it  lawful  to  give  tribute  to  Caesar, 
or  not? 

"Shall  we  give,  or  shall  we  not  give?  But 
he,r  knowing  their  hypocrisy,  said  unto  them, 
Why  tempt  ye  me?  bring  me  a  penny,  that  I 
may  see  it.  via* 

"And  they  brought  it.  And  he  saith  unto 
them,  Whose  is  this  image  and  superscription  ? 
And  they  said  unto  him,  Caesar's. 

1  Gross  income  for  1914,  $51,792,223.42.  (Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Report,  1914,  p.  2.) 

34 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

"And  Jesus  answering  said  unto  them, 
Render  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's, 
and  to  God  the  things  that  are  God's."  l 

12.  WITH  EVERY  GAIN  THERE  IS  A  LOSS  2 

Even  the  prevention  of  disease  may  be  at- 
tended by  results  as  powerful  and  distress- 
ing as  was  the  disease  prevented.  Typhus 
fever  uncontrolled  might  well  have  stopped  a 
war  that  has  cost  more  misery,  pain,  and  de- 
struction than  any  plague  in  history.  And  it 
is  fair  to  question  if  man's  methods  are  prov- 
ing themselves  to  be  more  "humane"  than 
were  God's. 

It  is  very  meet  and  proper  for  us  to  utilize 
science  to  its  utmost  possibilities.  It  is  not 
meet  and  proper  to  place  science  beside  Baal 
and  the  golden  calf. 

"Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  thyself  unto 
them,  nor  serve  them :  for  I  the  Lord  thy  God 
am  a  jealous  God,  visiting  the  iniquity  of  the 
fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generation  of  them  that  hate  me, 

,    l  Mark  xn,  14-17. 

2  To  every  action  there  is  an  equal  and  opposite  reaction. 
(Third  law  of  motion.) 

35 


RE-EDUCATION 


cc 


'And  shewing  mercy  unto  thousands  of 
them  that  love  me  and  keep  my  command- 
ments." l 

By  his  own  example,  Christ  showed  his  atti- 
tude to  pain,  disease,  and  death  not  to  be  in 
accordance  with  our  present  one.  For  if  we 
believe  that  He  had  the  power  to  cure  disease 
and  to  raise  the  dead,  unless  that  power  was 
very  limited,  we  must  also  admit  that  He  used 
it  very  sparingly. 

Our  present  attitude  would  insist  upon  its 
constant  and  all-inclusive  exercise  until  all 
pain,  all  sin,  all  death  were  overcome.  There 
is  reason  for  believing  that  Christ  did  not  con- 
sider the  alleviation  of  pain  to  be  the  greatest 
work  He  had  to  do  either  for  man  or  for  God. 

13.  WHAT  ARE  WE  TRYING  TO  DO? 

The  first  consideration  of  Re-Education 
should  be  devoted  to  the  therapeutic  and  the 
educational  effects,  and  not  to  the  value  of 
possible  product.  For  what  we  strive  to  ac- 
complish is  a  more  effective  institutional 
system  rather  than  a  new  way  of  "making 
1  Deuteronomy  v,  9,  10. 

36 


'OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

money."  Therefore,  the  first  subject  to  con- 
sider is  the  effect  upon  society  which  the  in- 
stitutional life  should  produce. 

What  are  we  going  to  teach  ?  If  we  admit 
the  possibility  of  Re-Education,  the  question 
to  be  answered  apparently  is,  "What  subject 
shall  we  teach ? "  I  say  " apparently"  because 
in  reality  that  is  not  the  first  question.  The 
search  for  possible  occupations  for  the  sick, 
sinful,  and  insane  has  been  accepted  as  the 
question  in  the  past.  It  seems  to  me,  however, 
that  we  must  again  pause  first  to  ask,  not 
"What  are  we  going  to  teach?"  but  "What 
are  we  endeavoring  to  do?" 

What  is  the  object  of  our  effort?  Careful 
consideration  of  the  charitable  endeavors  of 
the  past  one  or  two  centuries  tends  to  make  an 
unprejudiced  observer  believe  that  many,  if 
not  most,  of  those  endeavors  have  been  made 
to  satisfy  or  to  prove  some  pet  theory  or  desire 
of  the  benefactor;  that,  in  brief,  much  of  our 
"charity"  should  be  credited  to  our  desire  to 
have  our  own  way,  and  only  secondarily  to  im- 
prove the  conditions  which  we  are  prone  to  be- 
lieve are  the  main  object  of  our  attack.  What 

37 


RE-EDUCATION 

should  we  teach?  Is  it  merely  to  get  the  sick 
man  physically  well,  or  is  there  and  should 
there  be  something  beyond  a  state  of  physical 
well-being  which  may  be  or  should  be  sought? 
If  so,  then,  in  the  case  of  the  incurable,  to  put 
him  to  death  in  a  manner  as  painless  for  him 
as  possible,  and  the  least  objectionable  to  soci- 
ety, seems  to  be  the  logical  conclusion.  If  not, 
and  if  we  are  justified  in  working  for  more 
than  physical  well-being,  then  we  should,  in- 
deed, strive  to  keep  him  alive,  but,  further- 
more, we  should  keep  him  alive  for  some  pur- 
pose, for  some  reason. 

For  what  reason,  for  what  purpose,  should 
we  endeavor  to  keep  the  sick  man  alive?  Is  it 
not  that  he  may  accomplish  the  best  of  which 
he  is  capable? 

Here  again  we  find  a  radical  departure  from 
one  of  the  doctrines  of  the  United  States.  But, 
however  much  we  cherish  the  spirit  of  our 
democracy,  —  however  great  we  know  the 
value  of  individual  effort  and  possibility  to  be, 
—  it  is  time  for  us  to  admit  that  the  ancient 
slogan  that  "any  boy  can  become  President" 
is  not  only  misleading  but  false.  That  all  men 

38 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

are  born  equal  may  or  may  not  be  true.  The 
question  does  not  enter  into  my  inquiry.  That 
all  who  have  the  same  amount  of  work  ex- 
pended upon  them  produce  the  same  results 
cannot  be  maintained,  and  is  not  maintained, 
so  far  as  I  know,  by  any  educator  of  expe- 
rience. One  of  the  reasons  for  this  failure  is 
that  it  is  impossible,  under  our  present  sys- 
tem, in  dealing  with  large  numbers  of  people, 
to  devote  much  time  to  individual  instruc- 
tion. Individual  instruction  is  necessary  to 
many  minds,  even  to  the  most  brilliant,  and 
it  should  be  noted  that  there  are  doubtless 
many  minds  now  classed  as  defective,  and 
treated  as  such,  which  may  in  reality  be  super- 
instead  of  .^-normal.  i 

One  instance  of  this  in  my  own  personal  ex- 
perience is  the  case  of  a  boy  who  was  long  con- 
sidered defective  and  sub-normal.  In  all  the 
great  educational  system  of  New  York  City 
there  was  no  place  for  him.  He  was  on  the 
verge  of  being  transferred  to  the  dependent 
class,  —  about  to  be  started  upon  a  career 
which  would  have  transferred  him  from  one 
institution  to  another,  with  a  constantly  de~ 

39 


RE-EDUCATION 

creasing  belief  in  his  own  ability,  and  with  a 
constantly  increasing  expense  to  the  commun- 
ity. With  less  than  two  weeks'  training  he  was 
returned  to  New  York  City,  placed  in  a  posi- 
tion for  which  he  seemed  qualified,  in  less  than 
seven  months  had  had  his  salary  doubled,  and, 
instead  of  becoming  a  charge  upon  the  city  at 
seventeen  years  of  age,  became  the  support  of 
his  blind  father. 

Fixed  standards  are  necessary  when  dealing 
with  large  numbers  of  people.  But  if  the  fixed 
standard  is  not  met,  the  individual  is  neces- 
sarily classed  as  defective,  irrespective  of  any 
super-normal  ability  in  unusual,  unstandard- 
ized  lines. 

This  makes  it  advisable,  as  many  people 
maintain,  for  vocational  guidance,  especially 
in  the  secondary  schools,  before  the  pupil  is 
allowed  to  select  his  optional  course.  But  the 
consideration  of  the  amount  of  time  necessary 
for  the  thoughtful  investigation  of  each  pupil 
in  any  one  of  our  large  cities  makes  all  realize 
that  such  investigation  is  an  impossibility.  It 
is  exceptionally  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to 
determine,  or  to  do  more  than  guess,  what 

40 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

progress  the  pupil  will  be  capable  of  making  in 
later  years  before  he  has  had  experience  in  the 
world,  in  the  handling  of  his  tools,  so  to  speak. 

But  at  what  period  in  later  years  would  it  be 
possible  for  him  to  stop  and  begin  again?  Only 
when,  by  reason  of  his  admitted  inability  to 
get  on,  he  is  forced  to  do  so  by  his  family  and 
friends,  for  his  and  their  own  good;  or  when 
forced  into  retirement  by  a  society  which  de- 
clares his  condition  dangerous  to  itself  —  in 
other  words,  when  he  ceases  to  be  able  to  main- 
tain his  existence  as  a  free  and  independent 
citizen  and  becomes  a  dependent  upon  society. 

Now,  to  recapitulate,  is  it  not  the  duty  of 
society,  either  to  dispose  of  him  as  easily  as 
possible,  or  to  endeavor  so  to  treat  his  weak- 
ness that,  upon  his  return  to  society,  he  may 
succeed  instead  of  failing  again?  Admitting 
this,  it  would  seem  that  he  should  be  so  treated 
and  trained  in  the  institutions  as  not  only  to 
be  restored  to  physical  and  mental  health,  but 
to  be  fitted  for  remunerative  labor  later,  in 
order  that,  ceasing  to  be  dependent  himself,  he 
may  take  his  place  with  those  workers  who 
maintain  the  institutions  for  dependents.  But 


RE-EDUCATION 

in  order  to  do  this  he  must  be  trained  for  some- 
thing which  society  needs,  and,  needing,  will 
pay  for  as  a  purely  commercial  transaction, 
without  the  question  of  further  charity  enter- 
ing into  the  purchase  of  his  product. 

"It  should  be  remembered  that  a  return  in 
money  is  not  the  only  way  by  which  a  patient 
can  remunerate  society  for  his  support  and  for 
the  loss  of  his  produce. 

"If  the  patient  can  be  sent  back  to  his  old 
job  (in  which  it  appears  the  majority  always 
succeed  better)  with  resistance  so  increased  as 
to  preclude  further  activity  of  the  disease,  that 
extra  strength  may  be  compared  to  'surplus* 
or  'reserve';. if  he  has  utilized  the  months  or 
years  spent  in  treatments  in  fitting  himself  to 
do  his  job  better  than  he  did  it  before,  his  gain 
in  efficiency  may  be  fairly  considered  an  'in- 
terest' upon  the  capital  necessary  for  his  sup- 
port. 

"If  in  addition  he  can,  while  under  treat- 
ment, produce  marketable  goods  of  commer- 
cial value,  that  product  may  be  classed  as  'im- 
provement of  property,'  decrease  in  'running 
expense,'  or  'unearned  increment,'  as  the  case 

42 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

may  be,  all  of  them  items  of  such  significance 
that  'masters  of  finance'  disregard  them  in  not 
the  slightest  degree  anywhere  except  in  the 
institutions." 1 

What  will  society  pay  for?  What  does 
society  need? 

These  are  the  questions  which  must  be  an- 
swered before  the  question  of  what  we  shall 
teach  can  be  approached. 

14.  SIZE  OF  THE  DEPENDENT  POPULATION 

In  order  to  give  an  idea  of  what  our  present 
condition  really  is,  and  in  lieu  of  many  pages  of 
statistics,  suppose  that  some  great  calamity  — 
earthquake,  conflagration,  famine,  and  pesti- 
lence— 'has  swept  over  the  six  New  England 
States,  and  that  in  all  that  rich  territory  there 
is  no  man,  woman,  or  child  unaffected.2  From 
every  State  in  the  Union  streams  of  gold,  food, 
and  clothing  would  flow  for  their  relief.  Hosts 
of  energetic  men,  armed  with  tools  and  ma- 
chines, would  at  once  invade  the  stricken  dis- 

1  Barton,  Occupational  Therapy,  pp.  50,  51. 

2  Population  of  New  England,  6,552,681.    (World  Al- 
manac, 1916.) 

43 


RE-EDUCATION 

trict  with  determination,  and  would  toil  cease- 
lessly until  the  people  of  New  England  were 
upon  their  feet  again,  —  were  once  more  run- 
ning their  factories,  sailing  their  ships,  —  until 
they  were  once  again  upon  a  self-supporting 
basis.  It  is  heart-warming  and  soul-stirring  to 
think  of  the  heroic  efforts  which  would  be  made 
by  rich  and  poor  alike  for  the  benefit  of  their 
unfortunate  brothers,  as  has  already  been 
proved  in  the  San  Francisco  earthquake. 

But  suppose  that  every  year  this  dreadful 
state  of  destitution  recurred.  And  suppose, 
too,  that  no  adequate  effort  was  made  to  pre- 
vent the  tramps  and  shirkers  from  entering 
that  district,  and,  by  taking  up  residence  there, 
sharing  in  the  benefits  to  be  derived. from  the 
calamitous  conditions. 

Would  not  all  the  best  minds  in  the  country, 
the  greatest  economists,  the  most  far-sighted 
sociologists  advise  that  it  would  be  unwise,  un- 
just, and  impossible  for  the  rest  of  the  country 
to  endeavor  continually  to  support  the  entire 
population  of  New  England  in  idleness  ?  Would 
not  the  great  financiers  prove  that,  if  con- 
sidered as  running  expense,  and  not  as  unusual 

44 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

improvement,  the  burden  would  be  too  heavy 
to  be  borne?  Would  not  the  most  tender- 
hearted of  our  divines  question  if  the  parable 
of  the  Good  Samaritan  were  applicable  to  any 
such  far-reaching  and  persistent  condition? 
Would  not  the  Federal  Government  appoint 
a  commission  to  investigate,  and  if  the  con- 
ditions were  the  result  of  some  natural  dis- 
advantage, would  not  the  whole  population  be 
moved?  If  it  were  caused  by  political  corrup- 
tion, would  not  the  evil  be  obliterated  at  what- 
ever cost?  Or  if  it  were  caused  by  the  shift- 
lessness  of  the  people,  would  not  Congress 
decide  that  six  million  people  could  not  be  fed, 
clothed,  and  cared  for,  year  after  year,  even 
though  they  were  sick  and  unfortunate? 
Would  not  the  Government  of  Great  Britain 
reach  the  same  conclusion  should  the  condi- 
tions apply  to  Canada  ? 1  Would  not  Europe 
declare  its  inability  so  to  maintain  the  entire 
population  of  Norway  and  Sweden?  * 

No  matter  how  dire  the  condition,  is  it  not 

1  Population  of  Canada,  7,200,000.     (World  Almanac, 
1916,  p.  328.) 

2  Population  of  Norway  and  Sweden,  8,000,000.  (World 
Almanac,  1916,  p.  328.) 

45 


RE-EDUCATION 

reasonable  to  suppose  that  out  of  this  great 
number  of  people,  there  would  be  some  one 
who,  though  unable  to  do  all  that  he  did  be- 
fore, would  still  be  able  to  do  something?  This 
professor  of  mathematics  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, admitting  that  he  can  no  longer  lecture 
on  differential  calculus,  —  is  it  still  impossible 
for  him  to  count  buns  in  the  bake-shop  ?  This 
bank  clerk,  who  needs  rest  in  the  salt  air  and 
the  sunshine,  —  is  it  not  possible  for  him, 
while  getting  his  rest  in  salt  air  and  sun- 
shine, still  to  catch  an  occasional  perch,  a 
tautog,  and  in  time  even  a  bluefish?  Is  there 
not  one  small  boy  in  the  whole  district  to  be 
benefited  by  the  exercise  to  be  derived  from 
driving  home  the  cows?  Is  there  not  one  psy- 
chasthenic  girl  whose  mind  can  be  clarified 
by  making  a  vegetable  garden?  Though  the 
lumberman  in  Androscoggin  County  is  ad- 
mittedly unable  to  swing  a  two-edged  axe,  — 
can  he  not  still  pick  up  the  chips  necessary  to 
keep  himself  warm  ?  Or  must  we  import  labor- 
ers to  pick  up  chips,  and  pay  for  them,  and 
insure  them  against  accident,  and  pension 
them;  and  include  in  the  educational  system 

46 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

of  the  rest  of  the  country  a  new  course  for 
the  scientific  education  of  chip-pickers? 

Is  it  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that,  out  of 
this  great  number,  many  would  be  found  who, 
though  unable  to  do  as  much  as  they  did  be- 
fore, or  as  much  as  the  men  in  New  York  or 
Illinois  are  obliged  to  do  in  order  to  live,  could 
do  a  great  deal  to  help  toward  their  own  sup- 
port; and  that  careful  investigation  and  ex- 
periment would  disclose  that,  by  some  slight 
change  in  their  surroundings,  their  occupa- 
tions, or  themselves,  they  could  not  only  work, 
but  they  could  also  work  to  their  own  thera- 
peutic advantage? 

15.  THE  IMMIGRATION  PROBLEM 

It  has  been  our  habit,  when  faced  with  any 
apparent  failure  in  our  institutions,  to  take 
refuge  behind  the  enormous  number  of  immi- 
grants coming  to  the  United  States.  Dr.  M. 
Girsdansky  l  has  shown  reason  to  question 
this,  at  least  as  regards  the  growth  of  insanity. 

The  United   States  has  declared  itself  a 

1  Eugenics  and  Immigration,  Jewish  Immigration  Bulle- 
tin, April  and  May,  1916. 

47 


RE-EDUCATION 

refuge  for  the  poor  and  oppressed  of  other 
lands.  But  if  we  cannot  care  for  that  alien, 
and  at  the  same  time  maintain  ourselves  and 
our  institutions,  the  United  States  as  a  refuge 
cannot  be  considered  a  success.  That  our 
problems  are  very  much  complicated  by  the 
alien  is  undeniable.  But  the  alien  is  so  clearly 
a  part  of  the  problem  that  he  cannot  be  used 
as  an  excuse  for  not  solving  it. 

Our  institutional  system  can  no  more  be 
excused  for  failing  to  keep  pace  with  the  alien 
population  than  it  could  be  for  failing  to  keep 
pace  with  the  growth  of  the  native  population. 
We  have  childishly  considered  this  country  as 
"so  big,"  and  its  resources  as  inexhaustible! 
We  have  been  thrilled  with  the  emotion 
aroused  by  the  thought  of  our  "  land  of  free- 
dom." We  have  welcomed  the  alien  to  our 
shores  without  sufficient  consideration  of  the 
fact  that  a  large  proportion  of  these  aliens 
arrive,  not  with  the  idea  of  being  producers, 
but  with  the  idea  that  they  can  get  "some- 
thing for  nothing."  (It  is  fair  to  admit  that 
many  of  them  have  succeeded.) 

We  have  room  still  for  thousands  of  these 
48 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

aliens,  but  only  if  they  can  aid  in  the  country's 
growth.  If  we  are  to  continue  to  support 
thousands  of  idle  men  in  our  cities  while 
thousands  of  bushels  of  grain  remain  unhar- 
vested,  we  can  afford  these  aliens  as  members 
only  of  the  producing,  and  not  of  the  depend- 
ent, class. 

It  makes  little  difference  to  society  whether 
a  man  is  a  once,  thrice,  "hyphenated  Ameri- 
can," or  a  native  citizen. '  "Is  he  a  shirker?" 
is  the  fundamental  question. 

16.  THE  FAILURE  OF  HYGIENE  IN  INDUSTRY 

Just  as  the  past  was  "priest-ridden,"  so  is 
our  present  age  "doctor-ridden."  The  fear  of 
hell-fire  has  given  place  to  the  fear  of  pain;  the 
ban  of  excommunication,  to  the  order  to  go  to 
the  hospital. 

The  doctors  have  built  up  a  wonderful  and 
superb  system.  But,  unfortunately  for  its 
permanence,  they  have  not  sufficiently  con- 
sidered the  economic  impossibility  of  spending 
more  than  a  certain  percentage  of  the  total 
production  of  the  country  —  even  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  life.  Just  as  the  priest  was  obliged 

49 


RE-EDUCATION 

to  renounce  part  of  his  power  in  favor  of  the 
physician,  in  order  that  man's  physical  needs 
might  be  better  met,  so  now  must  the  doctor 
admit  the  engineer,  in  order  that  those  needs 
shall  be  met  economically.  So  must  the  en- 
gineer introduce  a  different  quality  of  instruc- 
tion, of  teachers'  service,  in  order  that  intelli- 
gence shall  keep  pace  with  population. 

No  law  can  exist  without  the  co-operation 
of  the  people.  Law  fails  to  enforce  hygienic 
measures  in  industry  because  the  significance 
and  value  of  such  laws  are  beyond  the  compre- 
hension of  the  ignorant  workman.  And  it  is 
the  observance  of  the  law,  and  not  the  law  it- 
self, which  alone  can  overcome  or  improve  con- 
ditions. A  law  requiring  adequate  washing 
facilities  in  a  lead  foundry,  for  instance,  the 
posting  of  the  rules  of  the  State  Board  of 
Health,  the  advice  of  learned  medical  societies, 
the  caption  "Safety  First"  upon  every  wall 
and  door,  will  all  fail  to  prevent  lead  poisoning 
if  the  workman  himself  continues  to  eat  his 
dinner  without  having  washed  his  hands.  If  in 
the  hospital  we  could  teach  the  patient  suffer- 
ing from  lead  poisoning  the  necessity  for  wash- 
So 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

ing  his  hands  —  even  if  nothing  more — we 
should  at  least  save  the  cost  of  bulletin  boards, 
notices  ordering  him  to  wash  his  hands,  and 
evening  classes  which  we  expect  him  to  attend 
when  tired  and  bored  —  all  of  which  have 
proved  to  be  failures. 

Our  whole  institutional  system  does  little 
more  than  prevent,  during  the  period  of  incar- 
ceration, the  act  of  which  the  prisoner  or  the 
patient  has  been  guilty.  It  does  not  teach  him 
not  to  commit  the  act  again  after  release.  Even 
in  our  prisons  there  are  many  men  who,  while 
to  be  sure  they  have  heard  their  charges  pre- 
ferred, do  not  understand  why  they  are  put 
in  prison.  They  know,  indeed,  that  they  have 
broken  a  law,  but  many  do  not  know  why  the 
commission  of  their  misdemeanor  is  an  offense 
against  society.  If  even  a  small  percentage  of 
our  institutional  population  could  be  released 
with  a  clear  idea  of  what  their  crime  against 
society  really  has  been,  and  how  to  avoid  a 
recurrence,  there  would  be  an  enormous  saving 
of  time,  money,  and  energy  in  many  other  lines 
of  social  endeavor. 


RE-EDUCATION 

17.  THE  INADEQUACY  OF  EDUCATION 

To  all  suggestion  that  this  or  that  particular 
phase  of  American  life  was  proving  itself  to  be 
a  failure,  the  reply,  "Education  will  change 
that,"  has  been  accepted  as  a  sufficient  and 
conclusive  argument.  At  the  worst,  we  have 
a  very  remarkable  educational  system.  But, 
even  granting  a  perfect  system,  a  sufficient 
number  of  schools  of  all  grades,  perfectly 
equipped  and  with  perfect  instructors,  it  is  un- 
reasonable to  expect  an  improvement  in  the 
intelligence  of  a  people  if  a  comparatively  large 
proportion  of  that  people  fail  to  receive  the 
benefits  of  that  education.  In  other  words,  no 
one  will  get  fat  on  food,  however  nourishing 
and  well  prepared,  if  he  does  not  eat  the  food. 
Some  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  educational 
system  itself  are  ably  pointed  out  in  "  Wage- 
Earning  and  Education,"  by  R.  R.  Lutz.1 

We  cannot  expect  to  increase,  or  (in  view  of 
immigration)  even  to  maintain,  the  standard 
of  intelligence  when,  for  example,  "eighty  per 
cent  of  those  who  enter  the  primary  grades 

1  Cleveland  Education  Survey,  Wage-Earning  and  Educa- 
tion, pp.  30-35. 

52 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

fail  to  complete  the  eighth  grade,  ninety  per 
cent  fail  to  enter  the  high  school,  and  ninety- 
six  per  cent  fail  to  graduate  from  the  high 
school.  These  figures  vary  but  little  in  most 
American  cities." 

"There  are  in  Massachusetts  twenty-five 
thousand  boys  and  girls  between  the  ages  of 
fourteen  and  sixteen  years,  who  are  not  in 
school,  and  are  not  in  a  line  of  work  which  it 
would  be  best  for  them  to  follow  in  life."  2 

Very  large  numbers  of  our  native-born  chil- 
dren do  not  receive  sufficient  education  to 
guarantee  the  maintenance  of  that  "intelli- 
gent vote"  without  which  the  United  States 
cannot  preserve  intelligent  legislation.  More 
than  that  —  our  system  places  before  our 
pupils,  at  a  very  impressionable  age,  a  tempta- 
tion to  leave  the  time-honored  trades  and  to 
enter  commercial  and  mercantile  pursuits.  A 
couple  of  dollars  more  a  week,  clean  hands, 
and  better  clothes  are  attractions  to  many. 
The  result  is  that  in  a  few  years  hands  meant 

1  Charles  F.  Perry,  Bulletin  no.  6,  National  Society  for 
the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education,  p.  6. 

2  C.  H.  Morse,  Bulletin  no.  6,  National  Society  for  the 
Promotion  of  Industrial  Education,  p.  86. 

53 


RE-EDUCATION 

for  a  hammer  are  displaying  neckties  over  a 
haberdasher's  counter;  a  body  demanding  ex- 
ercise is  hopelessly  chained  to  a  bookkeeper's 
desk.  The  physical  body,  denied  the  life  for 
which  it  was  formed,  revolts;  sickness  and 
despondency  result;  and  the  individual  real- 
izes too  late  that  he  has  made  a  mistake  in 
the  selection  of  his  life-work.  The  surprising 
growth  and  success  of  the  correspondence 
schools  prove  how  many  men  realize  such 
mistakes. 

The  trades  must  inevitably  suffer  by  this  de- 
flection of  their  most  promising  material,  for 
there  is  little  chance  for  their  improvement  if 
only  the  lowest  order  of  minds  consider  them 
worthy  of  entering. 

That  you  cannot  make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a 
sow's  ear  was  accepted  as  a  truth  generations 
ago.  Yet  a  vast  part  of  our  educational  system 
operates  in  direct  opposition  to  that  maxim. 
We  are  educating  a  very  large  number  of  boys 
apparently  upon  the  assumption  that  each 
one,  irrespective  of  his  qualities  and  attributes, 
may  become  President  of  the  United  States. 
The  success  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  more  the 

54 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

cause  of  poor  mechanics  in  the  United  States 
than  any  weakness  in  our  immigration  laws. 
There  is  an  almost  exactly  defined  limit  to  the 
numbers  of  Presidents  which  are  to  be  needed 
in  one  generation.  There  is  practically  no 
limit  to  the  numbers  of  skilled  workmen  needed 
in  almost  every  walk  in  industrial  life. 

Mr.  Henry  S.  Pritchett,  in  an  article  on 
"Industrial  and  Technical  Training"  in 
"Popular  Education,"  says :  — 

"In  every  State  in  the  Union  there  exist 
schools  for  this  training  for  the  higher  indus- 
trial life  —  the  life  of  the  engineer,  of  the 
chemist,  of  the  manager,  of  the  man  who  in 
one  way  or  another  is  to  act  as  a  leader  in  the 
industrial  army.  But,  after  all,  the  number  of 
leaders  who  are  needed  is  limited;  and  it  is 
worth  while  asking  what  is  being  done  in 
America,  and  what  can  be  done,  for  training 
the  sergeants  and  corporals  and  privates  of 
the  industrial  army." 

Strenuous  endeavors  to  overcome  this  weak- 
ness have  been  made  through  the  many  grades 
of  manual  training,  trade  and  vocational 
schools,  by  corporation  schools,  etc.  There  are 

55 


RE-EDUCATION 

two  fundamental  weaknesses  in  most  of  these 
endeavors.  First,  it  is  impossible  for  a  school 
to  graduate  a  pupil  fitted  for  commercial  con- 
ditions. To  do  that  it  is  necessary  for  the  pupil 
to  be  able  to  work  with  speed,  as  under  com- 
mercial conditions,  which  is  not  possible  where 
no  commercial  conditions  exist.  Second,  many 
of  the  pupils  in  the  night,  half-time,  corpora- 
tion schools,  etc.,  are  already  doing  sufficient 
work,  and,  ambitious  to  do  more,  frequently 
by  undertaking  too  much  succeed,  not  in  do- 
ing more,  but  in  doing  nothing,  thus  adding 
again  to  the  dependent  class.  At  the  same 
time  society  loses  the  value  of  their  product.1 

Every  opportunity  and  encouragement 
should  be  given  to  the  man  who  desires  to 
improve  his  condition. 

It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that 
education  is  an  insurance  for  the  benefit  of  the 

1  "  The  Technical  Night  Schools.  Only  a  small  proportion 
of  the  pupils  attend  more  than  one  year,  and  the  mortality 
from  term  to  term  is  very  high,  although  the  tuition-fee 
plan  insures  fairly  good  attendance  during  the  term.  The 
data  collected  by  the  survey  [Cleveland]  indicate  that  the 
average  length  of  attendance  is  approximately  two  terms  — 
the  equivalent  in  student  hours  of  less  than  three  weeks  in 
the  ordinary  day  school."  (R.  R.  Lutz,  Wage-Earning  and 
Education^  p.  77.) 

56 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

future,  and  as  such  necessarily  reaps  the  re- 
ward, not  of  its  own  efforts  (payments),  but  of 
those  of  the  previous  generations.  The  value 
of  any  change  in  a  regulated  educational  sys- 
tem cannot  be  manifested  until  a  sufficient 
number  of  classes  have  not  only  graduated 
from  school,  but  have  also  tried  out  their 
learning  in  actual  life.  To  alter,  to  any  great 
extent,  such  an  important  and  elaborate 
machine  as  our  school  system  would  be  a 
dangerous  and  questionable  proceeding.  The 
period  of  transition  would  leave  a  serious  gap 
which  would  inevitably  be  felt  in  the  future. 

We  have  undertaken  a  heavier  insurance 
than  we  can  afford  to  pay  the  premiums  on,  un- 
less we  can  get  more  money  out  of  our  present 
job.  For,  unlike  the  individual  who  finds  him- 
self similarly  situated,  we  have  no  means  even 
of  borrowing  upon  a  partly  paid-up  policy  to 
relieve  a  temporary  stringency.  But  our  posi- 
tion is  not  one  of  temporary  distress,  and  even 
if  it  were  possible  to  borrow,  we  should  only 
be  adopting  the  fallacious  methods  of  the 
South  Sea  Bubble  —  that  is,  paying  interest 
out  of  gross  income. 

57 


RE-EDUCATION 

18.  THE  COST  OF  LIVING 

No  one  can  blame  the  twenty-five  million 
wage-earners  for  complaining  at  the  cost  of 
living.  No  one  can  blame  them  for  seeking 
higher  wages  and  fewer  hours  of  work.  How- 
ever, higher  wages,  fewer  hours  of  work,  and 
cheaper  living  do  not  come  out  of  the  capital- 
ist, but  out  of  the  producer  himself.  Less  work, 
more  pay,  greater  security  against  accident 
and  old  age  (increased  expenditure),  can  only 
come  with  greater  production.  Greater  pro- 
duction can  only  be  obtained  either  by  increas- 
ing the  number  of  producers  or  by  increasing 
their  efficiency.  In  other  words,  we  cannot, 
with  our  present  strength  and  skill,  in  the 
time  allowed,  split  enough  wood  —  even  if  we 
had  the  wood  —  to  keep  the  fire  burning.  We 
can,  to  be  sure,  continue  our  present  system 
which  is  very  like  burning  the  wood  uncut  — 
having  a  forest  fire.  But  is  that  to  be  the 
flaming  climax  of  an  "economic  age"? 

1  19.  WASTE  PRODUCTS 

In  the  vicinity  of  almost  every  industrial 
plant  a  generation  ago  were  heaps  ranging  in 

58 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

size  from  a  bushel  to  a  veritable  mountain  — 
waste  product,  scraps,  slag,  ore  without  suf- 
ficient value  to  pay  for  its  refining  under  the 
methods  employed  at  that  time.  Fortunes 
were  found  in  those  dumps.  Greater  incomes 
were  derived  from  past  failures  than  had  been 
received  from  the  successful  product. 

Nearly  every  one  of  our  institutions  has  a 
rubbish  heap  —  a  dump. 

Where  do  we  find  society's  failures?  Wait- 
ing in  the  smoking-room  of  some  mission  for  a 
a  job  which  they  cannot  and  will  not  hold  if 
found;  scratching  the  joints  of  their  prison 
cells;  picking  at  the  sheets  in  their  hospital 
beds;  watching  the  grass  grow  in  the  con- 
valescent homes. 

Is  it  not  wise  for  an  economic  age  to  con- 
sider if  there  is  not  an  unearned  increment  to 
be  gathered  also  from  these  dumps? 

20.  THE  VALUES  OF  THINGS 

Everything  that  is  in  the  physical  or  the 
metaphysical  worlds  is  endowed  with  certain 
attributes,  certain  qualities.  The  value  of  that 
thing  or  idea  to  society  is  the  value  of  those 

59 


RE-EDUCATION 

qualities,  plus  what  can  be  gained  by  addition 
or  re-arrangement,  minus  what  is  lost  by  such 
change. 

And  just  as  there  are  different  qualities  in 
things,  so  must  there  be  different  qualities  in 
whatever  may  contain  those  things.  The  man 
who  would  look  in  glass  vials  for  potatoes,  or 
in  gunny  sacks  for  attar  of  roses  would  prove 
by  so  doing  his  inability  to  grasp  essentials. 
To  search  through  a  sack  of  potatoes  on  the 
chance  of  finding  a  vial  of  attar  of  roses  would 
be  an  absurdity,  unless  there  was  some  definite 
reason  for  suspecting  that  one  sack  of  potatoes 
was  unlike  all  the  others.  It  would  be  as  ab- 
surd as  the  man  who  starved  to  death  rather 
than  eat  his  oysters,  fearing  that  one  might 
contain  a  pearl. 

We  not  only  produce  John  Does  by  the 
million,  but  actually  hinder  all  of  them, 
rather  than  risk  impeding  one  possible  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  forgetting  that  no  educational 
system  has  ever  in  itself  produced  genius, 
and  forgetting  also  that  no  educational  sys- 
tem —  that  no  difficulty  —  has  ever  been 
able  to  prevent  the  progress  of  the  genius  — 

60 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

of  that  rare  individual — who  determines  at 
all  costs  to  accomplish  some  one  thing.  This 
is  especially  true  where  knowledge  is  the  ob- 
jective, and,  while  the  solitary,  unassisted 
student  may,  and  often  does,  kill  his  body  in 
his  efforts  to  improve  his  mind,  who  can  say 
that  by  so  doing  he  has  not  fulfilled  his 
destiny?  It  is  seldom  that  the  pedagogue 
assists  such  a  one  without  also  hindering  that 
individual  development  which  is  the  true 
essence  of  his  strength.  The  unguided  stu- 
dent of  philosophy,  for  instance,  wastes  large 
amounts  of  time  for  lack  of  direction.  Yet 
it  is  he,  more  frequently  than  the  M.A.,  who 
continues  to  think  and  to  study  in  after-life. 

That  individual  with  a  congenital  determi- 
nation "to  do"  should  be  the  last  —  not  the 
first  — one  which  a  system,  as  such,  should 
endeavor  to  improve.  To  prepare  the  ma- 
jority for  a  life  for  which  they  are  fitted  should 
be  the  first  endeavor  of  an  educational 
"system."  The  superior  youth  will  rise 
superior,  or  dying  will  influence  the  system 
in  exact  ratio  to  his  strength.  His  effort  can- 
not be  wasted. 

61 


RE-EDUCATION 

With  every  gain,  even  in  education,  there 
comes  a  loss.  Any  graduate  of  a  high-school 
course  in  botany  probably  knows  more  botany 
than  did  ever  any  Bohemian  gypsy.  Yet  it 
would  be  as  unusual  now  to  find  even  a  pro- 
fessor of  botany  who  could  read  the  "signa- 
tures "  of  plants  as  it  would  be  to  find  a  pro- 
fessor of  mathematics  who  would  see  any  use 
in  the  Kokkinon  of  Eratosthenes,  or  who 
would  grant  to  numbers  any  value  other  than 
their  numerical  value,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
Pythagoras,  the  Father  of  Numbers,  con- 
tended that  they  were  so  endowed.  For  most 
of  us  intelligence  is  a  poor  substitute  for  that 
instinct  which  leads  an  animal  to  pass  by  a 
poison  to  the  food  best  adapted  to  its  condi- 
tion. Man  gets  little  help  from  immobile 
Nature,  until,  like  a  fretful  child,  he  hides  his 
tears  in  her  lap  and  renounces  "free  will"  and 
reason  which  differentiate  him  from  a  beast. 

If  my  theory  is  correct,  that  man  is  happy 
only  when  energizing  in  the  direction  of  the 
coincidence  of  his  interests  and  possibilities, 
then  that  country  will  be  happiest  where  the 
greatest  number  of  men  are  energizing  in  the 

62 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

direction  of  their  greatest  possibilities.  And  if 
happiness  is  a  necessary  or  a  desirable  factor 
in  the  growth  and  permanence  of  a  nation, 
then  it  should  be  the  aim  of  education  so  to 
deal  with  each  individual  that  that  individ- 
ual, while  doing  some  work  necessary  for  the 
maintenance  and  perpetuation  of  the  State, 
could  also  be  happy  and  well  in  doing  it. 

The  educational  system  of  a  State  cannot 
be  considered  a  success  if  it  merely  forces  its 
pupils  on  to  a  citizenship,  attempting  more 
than  they  are  mentally  and  physically  capable 
of,  and  doomed  to  insanity  and  disease.  To  be 
a  success,  the  educational  system  of  a  State 
must  provide  graduates  suitable  for  every 
situation,  high  or  low,  demanded  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  community  —  some  one  so 
fitted  for  that  work  that  he  can  not  only  do 
the  work,  but  also  do  the  work,  develop  under 
the  work,  be  reasonably  happy,  and  remain 
well  in  the  performance  of  it. 

21.  KILLING  TWO  BIRDS  WITH  ONE  STONE 

The  time  has  come  in  the  United  States, 
and  has  already  passed  in  Europe,  when  the 

63 


RE-EDUCATION 

surgeon,  especially  the  orthopedist,  cannot  be 
considered  as  doing  his  full  work  by  the  treat- 
ment of  injuries  or  the  correction  of  deformity. 
His  aim  should  be  no  longer  merely  to  replace 
an  arm  or  a  leg  by  a  reproduction  of  the  lost 
member;  he  should  strive  to  utilize  the  de- 
formity to  its  best  advantage. 

The  artificial  limb  should  be  regarded  as  an 
extension  necessary  to  fill  the  gap  between 
that  part  of  the  man  which  remains  and  some 
useful  labor  for  which  he  is  qualified  and  which 
is  necessary  for  his  support. 
:  The  imitation  hand  which  successfully  de- 
ceives is  only  justified  in  the  case  of  the  in- 
dividual who  is  purely  ornamental,  as  one 
might  at  great  expense  be  justified  in  having 
carved  from  marble  the  missing  arms  of  the 
Venus  of  Milo,  but  would,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  repair  with  cement  an  injury  to  a 
grotesque  fountain.  But,  without  doubt,  the 
so-called  " modern  society  girl"  would  be 
better  satisfied  if  her  ornamental  hand  could 
shuffle  cards. 

Much  Re-Education  has  until  recently  been 
attempted  by  special  gymnasium  apparatus. 

64 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

The  exercises  and  motions  producing  the  same 
therapeutic  effect  can  be  obtained  from  useful 
tools  and  machines  and  productive  occupa- 
tions. Though  it  has  not  yet  been  proved  to 
my  complete  satisfaction,  it  is  not  too  much  to 
assert  that  there  is  a  useful  occupation  which 
will  produce  a  similar  effect  to  that  of  every 
drug  in  materia  medica  —  an  exercise  and  oc- 
cupation for  every  joint,  muscle,  and  organ  in 
the  human  body. 

There  are  the  long  days,  weeks,  and  months 
of  convalescence  during  which  the  patient's 
condition  and  improvement  depend  often  so 
largely  upon  what? 

Medicine?  No. 

Treatments?  No. 

Idleness?  No. 

Food?  No. 

Upon  the  assimilation  of  food,  and  rest. 

Feeding  and  assimilation  of  food  are  two 
entirely  different  things.  The  mere  lack  of 
occupation  is  not  "rest."  The  simplest  needs 
of  the  convalescent  —  sleep,  rest,  and  the 
assimilation  of  food  —  cause  the  medical  pro- 
fession, more  trouble  than  almost  anything 

65 


RE-EDUCATION 

else,  for  there  are  many  patients  who  cannot 
assimilate  food  without  exercise,  who  cannot 
sleep  or  rest  unless  their  minds  are  occupied 
with  something  "worth  while"  And  what  does 
"worth  while"  mean  to  the  great  majority  of 
patients  ?  It  means  money  ! 

From  the  most  severe  to  the  most  simple 
conditions  of  ill  health,  the  needs  for  money 
and  occupation  are  almost  universal. 

"In  considering  hospital  efficiency,"  say 
Frank  and  Lillian  Gilbreth,1  "there  are  two 
questions  which  must  be  asked:  (i)  'What 
does  this  factory,  called  a  hospital,  manufac- 
ture; what  is  the  hospital's  aim;  and  how  is 
it  attempting  to  attain  this  aim?'  (2)  'Are  we 
getting  the  product  as  cheaply,  as  quickly,  and 
in  as  large  quantities  as  is  possible?' 

"To  consider  the  hospital  in  the  most  gen- 
eral terms,  it  must  be  considered  as  a  'happi- 
ness factory.'  The  hospital  is  subject  to  all  the 
laws  and  processes  of  obtaining  efficiency  in 
the  manufacturing  establishment.  The  output 
of  the  hospital  is  'happiness  minutes';  the  aim 

1  Gilbreth,  Hospital  Efficiency  from  the  Standpoint  of  the 
Efficiency  Expert. 

66 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

of  the  hospital  is  to  give  the  largest  number  of 
units  of  happiness  to  the  most  people,  with  the 
least  expenditure  of  time,  money,  and  effort, 

—  or,  in  other  words,  with  the  least  expendi- 
ture of  energy  possible. 

"We  must  think  of  this  product,  happiness, 
(i)  as  of  the  happiness  of  mankind  as  a  whole 

—  of  the  social  group;  (2)  as  of  the  individuals 
comprising  the  group.   The  happiness  of  the 
social  group  will  be  best  gained  when  each  in- 
dividual in  the  group  is  happy,  and  when  all 
are  working  together  for  the  good  of  all.   In 
the  factory,  this  condition  is  called  'hearty 
co-operation.'  It  is  one  of  the  nine  fundamental 
features  of   measured,    functional    manage- 


ment." 


If  money  can  be  obtained  from  an  occupa- 
tion which  requires  for  its  performance  those 
actions  and  conditions  which  are  conducive 
to  the  improvement  of  the  patient,  we  shall 
have  killed  three  and  not  two  birds  with  one 
stone.  In  preventive  medicine,  if  the  individ- 
ual can  be  educated  for,  and  placed  in,  a  labor 
by  which  he  shall  not  only  support  himself, 
but  keep  himself  well,  we  shall  have  let  both 

67 


RE-EDUCATION 

birds  kill  each  other  through  conflict,  and  shall 
have  saved  not  only  the  stone,  but  also  the 
effort  required  to  throw  it. 

22.  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

It  is  impossible  to  determine  in  what  par- 
ticular work  for  his  later  life  each  youth  should 
be  instructed,  for  youth  is  seldom  sufficiently 
defined  to  allow  of  exact  analysis.  The  high- 
school  student's  selection  of  an  optional 
course,  as  between  zoology  and  botany,  or 
French  and  German,  for  instance,  has  seldom 
greater  significance  than  that  of  his  small 
brother  who  is  filled  with  the  ambition  to  drive 
a  fire  engine. 

This  is  not  true,  however,  of  the  sick  or  the 
dependent,  who,  through  some  failure,  physi- 
cal or  mental,  have  proved  by  actual  tests  at 
least  some  of  their  possibilities  and  limitations. 
These  sick  and  dependent,  though  their  num- 
ber is  legion,  can  be  studied  upon  a  basis 
of  scientific  knowledge  —  that  is,  knowledge 
which  can  be  tested  and  measured;  and  these 
can  be  Re-Educated,  no  longer  upon  the  basis 
of  childish  fancies  for  optional  courses,  but 

68 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

upon  what  time,  experience,  and  failure  have 
proved  to  be  the  mental  and  physical  possi- 
bilities and  limitations  of  the  individuals;  and 
those  individuals  can  be  returned,  not  only 
with  their  fractures,  their  lesions  healed,  but 
fitted  for  some  work  needed  —  required  —  by 
the  society  which  has  preserved  them. 

The  logical  end  of  a  life  sustained  and  pro- 
longed by  drugs  is  death  by  morphine  or 
cyanide.  The  time  for  the  lethal  chamber  has 
not  yet  come,  and  it  is  necessary  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  society's  solvency  to  find  some  way 
by  which  every  particle  of  good  in  the  rubbish 
heaps  beside  our  institutions  may  be  utilized. 

23.  THE  NECESSITY  FOR  GETTING  ALL  THE 
VALUE  OUT  OF  A  THING  WITH  THE  LEAST 
HARMFUL  EFFECT  UPON  OTHER  THINGS 

There  is  no  economy  in  using  a  whole  man 
for  a  work  that  a  part  of  a  man  can  do  as  well. 
If  we  can  train  the  public,  or  "persuade  the 
uninjured  man  that  it  is  hardly  respectable 
to  do  work  that  can  be  done  by  a  cripple,"  l  in 

1  Gilbreth,  "How  to  Put  the  Crippled  Soldier  on  the 
Pay-Roll,"  Trained  Nurse  and  Hospital  Review,  May,  1917. 

69 


RE-EDUCATION 

a  short  time  the  well  man  would  feel  much 
as  the  small  boy  feels  about  something  that 
"girls  do";  that  is,  he  respects  the  work  itself, 
but,  taking  pride  in  the  fact  that  he  is  a  boy,  he 
cannot  be  induced  to  do  it  himself.  There  are 
plenty  of  occupations  for  the  crippled,  for  the 
blind,  even  for  the  insane,  which,  being  done 
by  them,  will  release  a  stronger  worker  for 
some  other  line  of  production  without  interfer- 
ing with  the  amount  of  product. 

What  does  our  society  need  ? 

I  pointed  out  on  page  54,  that  the  trades 
suffered  from  the  deflection  of  their  most 
promising  material.  So  far  as  I  know,  there  is 
nothing  in  all  our  trade-school  system  which 
shows  youth  the  true  possibilities  of  the  trades. 
I  do  not  see  how  the  subject  could  be  well  in- 
cluded there;  but  I  do  see  the  need  —  and  it 
can  be  included  —  in  institutional  Re-Educa- 
tion. Our  arts  and  crafts  societies  are  usually 
pained  and  shocked  at  finding  among  the 
workmen  in  the  shops  so  little  understanding 
of  the  possibilities,  the  latent  beauty  and  dig- 
nity, and  the  significance  of  a  trade  in  which 
(though  they  have  practiced  it  for  many  years) 

70 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

the  workmen  are  only  acquainted  with  the  use 
of  the  tools  involved. 

There  is  no  justice  in  the  attitude  of  so- 
ciety regarding  the  qualities  of  the  different 
labors  and  vocations.  The  plumber  who  brings 
interest  and  intelligence  to  his  job  can  find  as 
much  satisfaction  and  opportunity  —  even 
opportunity  for  creative  work  —  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  a  circulation  system  as  a  surgeon 
does  in  the  performance  of  a  gastro-enteros- 
tomy.  The  two  problems  are  identical  in  es- 
sence. While  the  surgeon,  when  performing  an 
abdominal  operation,  can,  by  a  mistake,  more 
quickly  kill  his  patient,  the  plumber  by  a  mis- 
take in  a  drain  can  just  as  surely  kill  an  entire 
household.  Why,  then,  should  the  surgeon  be 
considered  so  much  superior  to  the  plumber? 
It  is  because  the  surgeon  does  —  and  the 
plumber  does  not  —  bring  keen  interest  and 
intelligence  to  his  work. 

Of  far  greater  value  to  any  trade  than  a  new 
and  perfectly  equipped  trade  school  would  be 
such  instruction  as  would  make  the  workman 
realize  the  true  beauty  and  possibility  of  his 
trade.  Such  a  course  could  not  be  given  as 


RE-EDUCATION 

effectively  in  an  apprentice  school  as  it  could 
be  given  to  a  class  of  a  dozen  plumbers,  for 
instance,  in  probably  every  general  hospital  in 
the  United  States. 

24.  ORGANIZED  LABOR 

Life  in  the  United  States  has  tended  from 
many  directions  toward  the  qualities  of  magni- 
tude rather  than  those  of  excellence.  The 
rapid  growth  in  our  population  has  not  been 
equaled  by  our  growth  in  intelligence. 

The  same  condition  is  true  in  the  world 
of  industry.  The  labor  unions,  by  urging  — 
even  coercing  —  any  individual  desiring  to 
work  at  his  trade  to  join  that  trade  union, 
have  overlooked  the  fact  that,  for  a  just  and 
economical  solution  of  the  difficulties  of  the 
industrial  world,  the  preservation  and  up- 
holding of  a  standard  of  excellence  is  as  nec- 
essary now  as  it  was  proved  to  be  in  the 
Middle  Ages. 

Any  discussion  of  present  labor  conditions  is 
difficult  owing  to  the  fact  that  there  are  com- 
paratively few  terms  which  are  clearly  defined. 
"Master  workman,"  for  instance,  implies  at 

72 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

present  a  certain  quality  suggesting  the  em- 
ployment of  others;  "journeyman"  has  little 
if  any  well-defined  meaning;  the  term  "ap- 
prentice" is  susceptible  of  several  interpreta- 
tions. Therefore,  for  the  purpose  of  this  in- 
quiry, I  shall  use  the  term  "skilled  workman" 
as  meaning  one  thoroughly  conversant  with 
his  trade  —  one  capable  of  reasonable  thought 
and  care  regarding  his  work,  and  able  to  take 
intelligent  independent  action,  the  term  "un- 
skilled workman,"  not  in  the  sense  that  "un- 
skilled laborer"  is  now  used,  but  meaning  one 
who,  while  employed  and  able  to  hold  his  job, 
is  still  not  thoroughly  proficient  —  one  whose 
judgment  cannot  be  trusted  as  sound.  He  may 
be  compared  to  the  boy  who,  a  member  of  the 
eighth  grade,  is  still  unable  to  graduate  from 
the  grammar  school. 

Very  many  workmen  in  America  are  un- 
skilled rather  than  skilled  workmen  largely 
owing  to  this  desire  on  the  part  of  the  unions 
to  make  every  one  at  work  in  a  trade  a  member 
of  the  union,  regardless  of  his  ability. 

In  every  industrial  plant  there  are  skilled 
workmen  worth  far  more  than  they  are  being 

73 


RE-EDUCATION 

paid.  No  one  is  more  willing  to  grant  this  fact 
than  are  the  owners  and  managers  of  such 
plants.  But  it  is  economically  impossible  to 
pay  the  skilled  workmen  their  true  value  when 
they  themselves  insist  that  the  unskilled  men 
shall  receive  as  much  as  they  do  themselves. 
And  also  no  one  knows  better  than  the  skilled 
workman  that  the  man  at  the  next  bench  is 
not  a  skilled  workman,  and  is  not  worth  as 
much  as  he  is  himself.  The  understanding  of 
this  condition  is  slowly  dawning  upon  the 
mind  of  the  skilled  workman  who,  for  some 
generations,  has  deceived  himself,  and  been 
deceived,  into  the  belief  that  the  wages  paid 
the  unskilled  workman  in  excess  of  his  true 
value  were  being  paid  by  the  capitalist,  instead 
of  coming  out  of  the  skilled  workman's  own 
pocket.  But  the  skilled  workman  is  already  in 
the  minority,  and,  by  having  given  a  union 
vote  to  the  unskilled  workman,  has  put  him- 
self in  the  position  of  being  unable  to  gain  his 
own  right  of  individual  development. 

That  an  industrial  war  is  inevitable  in  the 
United  States  is  the  opinion  of  many  sociolo- 
gists. That  war,  however,  will  not  be  so  much 

74 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

between  labor  and  capital  as  between  the  two 
branches  of  labor  —  between  the  skilled  work- 
man who  will  assert  his  superiority,  and  the 
unskilled  workman  who,  like  a  leech,  will  re- 
fuse to  let  go  his  hold  until  gorged  with  blood. 
With  the  introduction  of  the  standard  of  excel- 
lence, standards  of  time  and  wages  can  not  only 
be  demanded  by  the  unions,  but  must  inevita- 
bly be  granted  by  capital.  For  capital  can  no 
more  exist  without  the  producer  than  the  pro- 
ducer can  develop  without  capital.  To  make 
the  skilled  out  of  the  unskilled  workman  is  per- 
haps the  very  largest  of  our  problems  to-day. 
This  cannot  be  done  with  youth,  because  youth 
has  not  yet  defined  himself.  It  can  be  done 
only  after  the  workman  has  proved  that  his 
education  and  experience  have  still  left  him 
unskilled.  Industrial  conditions  would  in- 
evitably shift  and  change,  until  the  skilled 
workman,  who  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
continuance  of  an  industrial  nation,  had  found 
his  true  status  in  that  industrial  life.  For  he 
would  then  be  in  a  position  to  demand  that 
it  should  be  so,  and  the  mere  secession  of  his 
labor,  and  the  consequent  stopping  of  his  pro- 

75 


RE-EDUCATION 

duct,  would  without  violence  give  him  powers 
of  which  even  Sam  Parks  never  dreamed. 

25.  LIGHTENING  THE  PRODUCER'S  BURDEN 

The  cost  of  maintaining  the  Government, 
the  necessity  for  armies  and  navies,  etc.,  have 
no  direct  bearing  upon  this  inquiry.  But  the 
enormous  capital  locked  up  both  in  state 
institutions  and  in  privately  endowed  eiforts, 
and  the  enormous  amounts  of  time  and  energy 
wasted  in  them  are  the  principal  tenets  of  this 
inquiry. 

There  is  a  feature  to  the  many  huge  and  gen- 
erous benefactions  which  commonly  escapes 
consideration.  It  should  be  remembered  that 
no  so-called  "rich  man"  —  that  no  capital  — • 
can  "endow"  an  institution,  as  the  term  is 
ordinarily  understood,  —  that  is,  paying  its 
expenses  forever.  The  "rich  man"  can,  in- 
deed, set  aside  a  proportion  of  his  capital  to 
be  devoted  to  a  specific  purpose.  But  the 
annual  interest  necessary  for  the  support  and 
maintenance  of  that  "endowed"  institution 
must  be  paid  by  the  product  necessary  to 
provide  that  interest.  Consequently,  it  makes 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

little  difference  to  the  producer  whether  an  in- 
stitution is  "endowed"  or  not.  If  this  capital 
could  be  released,  or  if  it  could  be  made  to  work 
(to  pay  interest),  the  burden  upon  the  pro- 
ducer would  be  very  considerably  lightened. 

26.  THE  WEAKNESS  OF  PRISON  LABOR 

But  Re-Education  at  once  raises  the  objec- 
tion—  and  with  some  justice — -that  such  an 
effort  has  already  been  made  in  the  prisons; 
and,  while  successful  in  so  far  as  the  beneficial 
effects  of  work  upon  the  inmate  and  the  value 
of  his  product  are  concerned,  changes  were 
produced  in  other  walks  of  life  so  serious  as  to 
demonstrate  its  danger. 

The  evil  of  convict  labor  has  been  proved  by 
actual  experience  to  lie  not  in  the  fact  that  the 
convict  is  made  to  work.  Almost  all  prison 
authorities  declare,  on  the  contrary,  that  work 
is  beneficial.  Neither  does  the  evil  lie  in  the 
fact  that  there  is  a  product.  The  only  evil  lies 
in  the  present  method  of  bringing  the  product 
of  convict  labor  into  competition  with  the 
similar  product  of  the  normal  workman.  Not 
only  has  this  method  proved  unsuccessful,  but 

77 


RE-EDUCATION 

it  is  economically  false  because  such  a  method 
in  effect  is  taxing  the  normal  workman  (by 
making  him  support  the  prison)  in  order  to 
subsidize  a  rival  —  an  absurdity. 

But  if  such  competition  can  be  eliminated, 
and  if  a  market  for  the  product  of  dependents 
can  be  found  wherein  no  such  competition 
exists,  the  only  evil  of  convict  (institutional) 
labor  is  eliminated. 

27.  A  BUSINESS  OPPORTUNITY 

It  has  heretofore  been  assumed  that  there 
was  no  such  possibility  —  no  such  market. 
Several  States  have  made  a  slight  advance 
toward  the  solution  of  this  problem  by  en- 
deavoring to  use  the  product  of  the  prison 
shops  in  the  other  departments  of  the  State. 
For  instance,  school  desks  could  be  made  in 
the  prisons  and  used  in  the  schools  maintained 
by  the  State. 

Theoretically  this  method  should  be  success- 
ful. But  practically  it  has  not  been  proved 
adequate  on  account  of  the  fact  that  almost 
all  state  commissions  and  departments  are 
working  alone  and  independent  of  all  the  other 

78 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

state  institutions.  For  instance,  a  state  com- 
mission on  education  (being  human)  aims 
simply  and  solely  to  solve  its  own  problems, 
and  to  preserve  to  the  utmost  its  own  indi- 
viduality. The  state  commission  on  prisons  is 
in  exactly  the  same  condition.  There  is  no 
correlation  between  the  different  branches  of 
the  state  institutions ;  and  this  allows  so  many 
opportunities  for  disagreement,  for  distrust, 
and  even  for  dishonesty,  that  without  some 
central  agent,  some  clearing-house,  some  gov- 
ernor (in  a  mechanical  sense,  a  regulator, 
not  a  dictator),  there  is  little  chance  for  any 
development  along  this  line.  But  that  a 
gigantic  market  for  such  products  does  exist 
will  be  shown  shortly. 

Should  a  business  man  be  offered  a  busi- 
ness opportunity  to  introduce  an  enterprise 
for  which  was  required  little  capital,  slight  in- 
crease in  overhead  expense,  free  or  very  cheap 
labor,  waste  or  very  cheap  material,  no  ad- 
vertising, slight  charge  for  transportation 
either  of  raw  material  or  of  finished  product, 
and  a  constant  and  assured  market  which 
would  pay  good  interest,  almost  his  only 

79 


RE-EDUCATION 

objection  would  be  that  such  a  business  could 
not  be  honest.  There  are  some  ten  thousand 
such  opportunities  in  the  United  States  to-day. 

28.  A  HALF-TIME  COMMUNITY 

In  the  picture  of  a  devastated  New  England 
I  gave  a  true  and  comprehensive  idea  of  what 
the  condition  of  our  dependent  life  really  is. 

Looking  at  our  institutions  as  a  whole,  —  I 
mean  all  dealing  with  sin,  sickness,  insanity, 
and  delinquency, — we  find  almost  every 
phase  of  human  life  represented.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  there  is  no  trade  —  no  profession  — 
unrepresented  in  this  great  dependent  popula- 
tion, the  individuals  in  which  for  some  reason 
or  other  have  proved  themselves  to  be  unable  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  the  normal  life  of  this 
age.  That  is  one,  if  not  the  only,  factor  com- 
mon to  all  the  equations  (different  institu- 
tions). 

Can  not  this  common  factor  be  taken  as  a 
basis  upon  which  to  build  a  new  line  of  en- 
deavor which  shall  not  add  to  the  weight  of 
an  already  overburdened  society,  but  which, 
by  virtue  of  its  quality,  may  be  used  to  co- 

80 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

ordinate  all  the  institutions,  while  still  leaving 
each  a  separate  entity,  to  bind  them  together 
with  some  common  purpose ; — the  common 
purpose  of  mutual  support? 

There  is  no  reason  why  the  drunkard  in  a 
dipsomaniacs'  home  cannot  work  to  his  own 
advantage  by  growing  vegetables.  Indeed,  in 
many  States,  he  has  already  been  made  to  do 
so.  There  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  be 
made  to  grow  more  vegetables  than  he  him- 
self can  consume,  and,  if  he  is  able,  he  should 
be  forced  to  do  so  without  being  subsidized  by 
society  beyond  the  point  necessitated  by  his 
weakness.  There  is  no  injustice  in  having  such 
excess  products  sent  across  the  street,  or  across 
the  State,  to  another  institution  wherein  his 
own  illegitimate  children  are  also  being  sup- 
ported by  the  same  taxpayer.  There  is  no 
reason  why  the  little  girl  in  the  "orphans' " 
home,  in  return  for  the  potatoes  received  from 
her  unknown  father,  should  not  be  taught  to 
knit  him  a  pair  of  mittens,  or  a  pair  of  stock- 
ings, instead  of  living  for  nothing  at  the  ex- 
pense of  that  same  taxpayer.  Admitting  that 
the  morals  of  a  woman  in  the  "nasty  ward" 

Si 


RE-EDUCATION 

are  beneath  contempt,  if  she  can  sew  buttons 
on  the  overalls  of  the  unknown  man  who 
caused  her  downfall,  is  it  unreasonable  or  un- 
just? Cannot  the  architect  who  is  convalesc- 
ing from  an  accident  assist  in  the  erection  of 
a  poultry-house,  and  not  only  be  helped  to 
health,  but  have  his  self-respect  maintained  ? 
Even  the  tuberculous,  for  whom  absolute  im- 
mobility has  been  for  so  long  considered  es- 
sential (in  exactly  the  same  way  that  past 
generations  considered  it  necessary  to  keep 
them  away  from,  and  not  in,  fresh  air),  have 
been  proved  to  be  benefited  by  work,  espe- 
cially garden  work;  and  not  only  to  be  bene- 
fited, but  to  leave  to  the  sanitarium  an  extra 
dividend  —  an  unearned  increment  —  in  the 
form  of  beautiful  gardens,  useful  roads  and 
drains,  or  improved  farmland.  Many  cases 
where  such  work  is  being  done  both  by  indi- 
viduals and  by  groups  can  be  already  cited. 
By  bringing  all  these  efforts  in  line,  by  ex- 
changing the  possible  product  of  one  institu- 
tion, in  excess  of  its  own  needs,  for  the  differ- 
ent product  of  another  institution,  in  excess  of 
its  own  needs,  and  by  sending  these  articles 

82 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

(or  accounts)  through  a  clearing-house,  our 
whole  dependent  population,  with  all  its  sub- 
divisions, could,  while  leaving  each  institution 
independent  so  far  as  its  particular  effort  was 
concerned,  decrease  very  materially  the  cost  of 
maintaining  them  all. 

29.  PERIODS  OF  INDUSTRIAL  DEPRESSION 

Standardized  courses  of  instruction,  and  a 
fixed  standard  of  excellence  for  products,  if  in- 
troduced into  the  Re-Educational  schools  and 
shops,  would  also  be  of  enormous  assistance 
during  periods  of  industrial  depression. 

Institutional  life,  though  it  changes  amaz- 
ingly from  generation  to  generation,  still  has 
always  to  do  with  the  fundamentals  of  human 
life  and  care,  the  essentials  of  which  change  but 
little.  Consequently,  a  standard  set  for  one 
article  to  be  used  in  the  institutional  half-time 
community  could  be  maintained  with  but 
slight,  if  any,  change  for  a  long  period;  and  a 
man,  once  having  received  sufficient  training 
to  enable  him  to  meet  that  standard,  would  be 
able  to  produce  that  article  in  case  of  need 
a  long  time  after  his  actual  institutional  life 

83 


RE-EDUCATION 

ended.  This  has  a  wide  bearing  upon  the 
grave  question  of  what  to  do  with  and  for 
convalescents  after  their  necessary  discharge 
from  the  hospital,  but  before  they  are  strong 
enough  to  return  to  normal  full-time  life. 

Let  us  suppose  that  a  sick  man,  during  his 
early  convalescence  in  the  hospital,  has  learned 
to  make  scrub-brushes,  or  bushel  baskets,  or 
doormats,  or  hospital  slippers,  etc.  —  that  he 
has  been  making  them  for  a  sufficient  time  in 
the  hospital  workroom  to  be  able  to  deliver  his 
product  up  to  standard.  He  knows  how  to  do 
the  work,  and  he  knows  how  well  it  must  be 
done  in  order  for  him  to  secure  compensation 
for  it.  If  the  hospital  provides  the  patient, 
upon  discharge,  with  the  educational  training, 
and  adds  thereto  raw  material,  that  patient 
can  at  home  produce  useful  articles  up  to 
standard,  at  a  price  attractive  to  the  State. 
At  any  time  later,  in  case  of  poverty  or  dis- 
tress, the  man  will  still  have  a  trade  and  a  sure 
market.  For  the  State  could  afford  to  buy  and 
to  store  the  completed  article  (if  up  to  stand- 
ard), and  the  capital  necessary  would  be  far 
less  than  that  required  for  our  present  so- 

84 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

called  u  charity,"  with  the  additional  advan- 
tage that  the  man  has  not  been  pauperized, 
and  that  the  State  has  something  to  show  for 
its  money. 

The  influence  of  such  a  work  upon  the 
normal  trade  would  be  only  to  eliminate  such 
sales  as  that  trade  itself  makes  to  the  institu- 
tions. 

It  would  be  obviously  unjust  for  the  State, 
after  accumulating  a  large  stock  of  products, 
to  put  them  upon  the  open  market  in  compe- 
tition with  the  normal  trade.  But  it  could, 
with  justice  and  without  serious  interference, 
exchange  those  products  for  the  products  of 
the  institutions  of  other  States,  or  sell  them  in 
foreign  countries. 

Developed,  this  method  could  also  be  used 
with  advantage  in  times  of  industrial  depres- 
sion for  the  unemployed,  who,  by  always  being 
able  to  get  a  job  in  the  institutional  shops, 
could  receive  enough  to  live  upon  and  a  very 
slight  addition,  and  consequently  need  never 
be  hungry,  unless  he  preferred  being  hungry 
to  working.  And  if  it  seems  cruel  to  the 
charitably  disposed  mind  to  let  a  man  go 

85 


RE-EDUCATION 

hungry  under  any  circumstances,  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  St.  Paul  said,  "And  if  any 
would  not  work,  neither  should  he  eat"; l  that 
Adam  was  told  that  by  the  sweat  of  his  face 
he  should  earn  his  bread;  and  that,  according 
to  the  Commandment,  it  is  six  times  more 
important  to  work  than  to  keep  the  Sabbath. 
The  vagabond  would  no  longer  find  it  neces- 
sary to  attract  the  roundsman's  attention  by 
throwing  a  brick  through  the  window  of  some 
respectable  taxpayer;  for,  by  declaring  him- 
self dependent  at  any  police  station,  he  could 
be  sent  to  that  shop  where  he  was  best  fitted 
to  work,  and  where,  by  his  own  efforts,  he 
could  be  fed  and  lodged  until  his  little  earn- 
ings had  amounted  to  enough  to  give  him  a 
fresh  start. 

That  this  would  undoubtedly  result  in  a 
very  large  number  who,  once  entering  such  a 
shop,  would  never  leave  it,  is  unquestionably 
true.  The  essential  question,  however,  is  as 
to  whether  such  individuals  would  not  have 
reached  their  proper  level  —  whether  they 
would  not  be  better  and  more  useful  citizens 

1  2  Thessalonians,  HI,  10. 
86 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

there  than  as  vagrants  in  the  country  or  as 
loafers  in  the  city. 

30.  THE  THIRTEENTH  AMENDMENT 

It  will  be  objected  that  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  provides:  "Neither  slavery  nor  invol- 
untary servitude,  except  as  a  punishment  for 
crime  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly 
convicted,  shall  exist  within  the  United  States, 
or  any  place  subject  to  their  jurisdiction." 

As,  however,  the  degree  of  crime  is  not 
specified,  and,  as  I  have  been  assured  by  high 
authority  a  misdemeanor  is  a  crime,  were  the 
laws  really  enforced  it  would  be  difficult  for 
any  citizen  in  some  States  to  exist  for  a  day 
without  being  convicted  of  crime.  It  is  safe 
to  assert  that  there  are  few  individuals  in 
the  country  who  could  not  be  forced  to  work, 
the  Thirteenth  Amendment  notwithstanding. 
The  vagrant,  the  drunkard,  the  individual 
who  fails  to  give  truthful  information  re- 
garding contagious  diseases,  are  already  con- 
sidered as  committing  misdemeanors  by  the 
law.  And  perhaps  were  it  made  a  misdemeanor 

87 


RE-EDUCATION 

to  give  birth  to  a  feeble-minded  or  a  syphilitic 
child,  a  greater  effect  would  reward  the  efforts 
of  society  than  by  all  the  existing  methods  of 
eugenics  and  purity.  At  all  events,  the  man 
who  expectorates  in  a  public  conveyance,  or, 
in  some  States,  upon  a  sidewalk,  can  be  made 
under  the  law  to  work. 

31.  PROFITS  FROM  INSTITUTIONS  ALREADY 
PROVED  POSSIBLE1 

That  enough  has  already  been  accomplished 
to  justify  the  belief  that  the  theory  of  a  half- 
time  colony  is  tenable,  I  shall  now  endeavor 
to  show. 

The  superb  work  which  has  been  done  in  the 
last  three  generations  for  the  re-education  and 
self-support  of  the  blind  is  too  generally  known 
to  demand  special  notice. 

The  work  for  the  insane,  though  less  clearly 
understood  by  the  business  man,  is  no  less 
satisfactory  or  spectacular.  In  the  Sixty- 
second  Annual  Report  of  the  Trustees  of  the 
Taunton  (Massachusetts)  State  Hospital,  for 

1  Reference  in  this  chapter,  to  foreign  institutions,  re- 
lates to  the  period  since  the  beginning  of  the  present  war. 

88 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

the  year  ending  November  30,  1915,  the 
Superintendent,  Dr.  Arthur  V.  Goss,  makes 
the  following  statement :  — 

"Thirteen  hundred  and  eighty-seven  pa- 
tients, —  six  hundred  and  forty-eight  men  and 
seven  hundred  and  thirty-nine  women,  —  or 
75 .95  per  cent  of  the  whole  number  under  treat- 
ment, engaged  in  some  form  or  forms  of  em- 
ployment. Two  new  industries  have  been  in- 
troduced during  the  year  —  picture-framing 
and  paper-bag  making  —  while  others  are 
planned  for  the  coming  year.  Last  December 
we  held  our  annual  Christmas  exhibition  and 
sale  of  articles  made  during  the  year,  the  total 
receipts  of  which  were  $477.37.  May  I,  1915, 
an  exhibition  and  sale  room  was  opened  at  the 
hospital  that  has  proved  to  be  a  great  help 
and  convenience,  as  it  enables  us  to  show  our 
handicraft  work  to  persons  interested  and 
tends  to  promote  a  steady  sale.  From  the  di- 
versional  occupation  exhibit,  held  under  the 
auspices  of  the  American  Medico-Psychologi- 
cal Association  at  Old  Point  Comfort  last  May, 
we  were  awarded  three  first  prize  certificates. 
This  last  summer  at  the  William  C.  Lovering 

89 


RE-EDUCATION 

colony  nine  patients  undertook  to  cultivate 
individual  gardens,  a  small  garden  plot  being 
set  aside  for  each.  These  gardens  were  all  suc- 
cesses in  a  practical  way,  while  the  necessary 
labor  and  care  was  a  wholesome  diversion  to 
those  who  undertook  the  work.  Mention 
should  here  be  made  of  the  war  relief  work 
done  during  the  past  year  by  our  patients. 
Besides  the  regular  hospital  industries  which 
have  been  kept  fully  up  to  standard,  our  pa- 
tients have  made  2054  articles  exclusive  of 
surgical  dressings  —  of  which  many  more 
have  been  made  —  for  the  relief  of  war 
sufferers  in  Europe.  This  work  has  been  to 
many,  if  not  to  most,  a  labor  of  love.  Informa- 
tion in  detail  concerning  our  industrial  work 
will  be  found  in  the  various  tables  accompa- 
nying this  report,  to  which  reference  is  made. 
Although  we  have  devoted  more  time  and 
energy  to  diversional  occupations  than  in 
previous  years,  we  have  endeavored  not  to 
depart  in  the  least  degree  from  the  funda- 
mental principles  upon  which  our  industrial 
system  is  founded  and  by  which  it  has  been 
developed,  one  being  that  the  most  time  and 

90 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

energy  should  be  expended  on  those  forms  of 
industry  that  are  the  most  directly  useful  re- 
garding the  hospital  as  a  co-operative  com- 
munity. It  is  our  conviction  that  it  is  neces- 
sary to  give  this  principle  due  prominence  to 
establish  a  permanent  and  valuable  industrial 
system;  this  will  also  tend  to  counteract  the 
tendency  to  develop  an  unhealthy  spirit  of 
rivalry,  whereby  greater  efforts  may  be  made 
to  surpass  a  sister  institution  than  to  promote 
healthful  and  helpful  industry  according  to 
the  needs  of  the  individual  patient." 

The  actual  product  of  this  endeavor  is  here 
given.1  Similar  reports  are  made  by  the  super- 

1  Summary  of  Products  from    Taunton  State  Hospital 
from  December  1, 1914,  to  November  30, 1915: — 

Farm  produce  — 

244,483  quarts  milk $13,854.04 

8,818  dozen  eggs 2,189.27 

50,859  pounds  meat 5,3 17.59 

i>335>432  pounds  feed,  etc 6,339.90 

779  boxes  vegetables l>336.73 

7,441  bushels  vegetables 5,186.99 

89,462  pounds  vegetables 623.30 

43  barrels  vegetables 58.70 

7,142  quarts  vegetables 665.68 


Total $35,572.20 

91 


RE-EDUCATION 

intendents  of  almost  all  state  hospitals  for  the 
insane  in  Massachusetts. 

In  many  conversations  and  discussions  in- 
cident upon  the  formation  of  Consolation 
House,  I  was  told  by  noted  doctors  and  sur- 
geons that,  while  such  results  might  be  ex- 
pected from  the  insane,  —  those  suffering  from 
mental  diseases  or  from  disturbances  of  the 
special  senses,  —  they  would  not  be  possible 
from  medical  or  surgical  cases.  In  other  words, 
that  what  was  possible  with  the  deaf,  dumb, 
blind,  or  insane  would  not  be  proved  pos- 
sible for  the  inmates  of  the  general  hospital. 
The  European  War  has  already  proved  that 
assertion  to  be  incorrect  regarding  surgical 
cases. 

" Hostilities  were  declared  on  August  I, 
1914,  and  on  the  I3th  of  the  same  month  the 


29,804  pieces,  work  done  on  wards  (sheets,  pillow- 
slips, etc.) 

3,310  pieces,  work  done  in  mattress-shop. 
15,847  pieces,  work  done  in  tailor-shop. 
2,652  pieces,  work  done  in  broom-shop. 
197  pieces,  work  done  in  basket-shop. 
1,656  pieces,  work  done  in  chair-shop. 
4>757  pairs,  work  done  in  shoe-shop. 

92. 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

Empress  addressed  to  the  president  of  the 
German  Association  for  the  Care  of  Cripples 
(Deutsche  Vereinigung  fur  Kruppelfursorge)  the 
following  communication :  — 

"'Her  Majesty,  the  Empress  and 
Queen,  expresses  the  wish  that  the  activ- 
ity of  the  German  organizations  for  the 
care  of  cripples  should  not  be  hampered 
by  the  events  of  the  war,  but  that  they 
should,  on  the  contrary,  contribute  their 
share  toward  the  alleviation  of  present 
hardships.  We  should  strive  to  prevent 
diminution  in  the  scope  of  work  by  insti- 
tutions for  cripple  care,  and  must  aid 
them  to  extend  that  work  in  certain 
directions.  For  instance,  needy  children, 
who  are  not  at  present  being  cared  for, 
should  be  received  into  the  institutions 
in  order  to  relieve  their  mothers  of  un- 
due burden. 

"'It  also  seems  desirable  that  these  in- 
stitutions should  undertake  the  ortho- 
paedic care  of  the  wounded,  as  their  en- 
tire equipment  fits  them  for  such  work. 
Their  facilities  could  also  be  utilized  to 
93 


RE-EDUCATION 

restore  the  wounded  to  their  former  in- 
.  dustrial  or  professional  status.  .  .  .' 1 
"Beginning  the  middle  of  last  December, 
there  was  held  in  the  Reichstag,  Berlin,  a 
general  exhibit  dealing  with  the  care  of  the 
wounded  —  the  Ausstellung  fur  Verwundeten 
und  Krankenfursorge  —  in  which  there  was  an 
important  section  dealing  with  provision  for 
war  cripples.  There  was  exhibited  orthopaedic 
apparatus,  and  articles  and  pictures  showing 
what  badly  crippled  individuals  can  do.  This 
exhibit  was  later  sent  to  other  cities.  In  con- 
nection with  it  there  was  held  in  Berlin  on 
January  13,  1915,  a  great  meeting  to  discuss 
'  Kriegskruppelfursorge.'  Dr.  Biesalski  spoke 
on  the  principles  of  the  work.  Professor 
Schweining  described  the  arrangements  per- 
fected by  the  army  authorities.  'The  military 
authorities  not  only  seek  to  heal  but  also  aim 
to  apply  measures  to  avoid  the  unfavorable 
results  of  wounds;  arrangements  for  this  had 
already  been  provided  in  time  of  peace.  In 
part  special  sections  for  orthopaedic  work  were 

1  Douglas  C.  McMurtrie,  Provision  for  War  Cripples 
in  Germany,  Bulletin,  Military  Hospitals  Commission  of 
Canada,  April,  1916,  p.  93.  /  i 

^  94, 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

established  or  contracts  were  concluded  with 
private  institutions.  A  large  number  of  or- 
thopaedists have  been  secured  as  consultants 
for  numerous  hospitals.  For  instance,  in  con- 
nection with  the  Garde-Korps,  twenty-four 
medico-mechanical  institutions  are  at  the  serv- 
ice of  the  military  authorities.  Also,  arrange- 
ments have  been  completed  with  one  hundred 
and  seven  health  resorts  for  the  after-treat- 
ment of  the  wounded  and  sick.  Artificial 
limbs  and  apparatus  are  procured  and  renewed 
by  the  military  authorities.  Special  institu- 
tions have  been  established  for  the  one-armed 
and  the  blind,  and  others  will  follow.  Advis- 
ors with  reference  to  trades  are  attached  to 
the  hospitals  for  those  who  no  longer  can  fol- 
low their  previous  trades  or  think  they  cannot. 
Finally,  he  spoke  of  the  special  pensions,  as 
the  field  allowance  and  the  increase  of  pay  for 
mutilation  will  remain  as  permanent  com- 
pensation for  those  crippled  in  the  war.' 
Kirchner,  the  Ministerial  Director,  also  spoke 
of  the  general  co-operation  requisite  for  suc- 
cess along  this  line."  1 

1  Douglas  C.  McMurtrie,  Provision  for  War  Cripples  in 
95  . 


RE-EDUCATION 

In  a  letter  urging  the  removal  of  Consola- 
tion House  from  America  to  France  or  to 
Switzerland,  a  professor  of  a  once  flourishing 
university  exclaims:  "You  preachers  of  the 
need  of  the  Re-Education  of  dependents  are 
wasting  your  time  in  America  where  you  have 
to  spend  a  whole  day  in  the  endeavor  to  get  the 
president  of  a  college  to  admit  a  premise  which 
is  self-evident  to  every  shopkeeper  in  Europe. 
No  one  here  can  look  out  of  his  window  with- 
out seeing  a  dozen  maimed  men ;  he  knows  that 
his  sons,  his  nephews,  and  his  brothers  are  in 
the  same  condition,  that  he  must  help  them, 
and  that  at  any  moment  his  own  house  may 
fall.  He  throws  his  arms  up  to  heaven  and 
cries  in  anguish,  'My  God,  I  am  willing,  but 
how  can  I  support  them  all?" 

This  apparently  simple,  though  pathetic, 
statement  in  reality  manifests  the  weakness  of 
the  present  system.  There  is  necessarily  a 
limit  to  the  amount  which  the  normal  man  can 
do  for  his  unfortunate  brother.  There  is  nec- 
essarily a  limit  to  the  number  of  members  of  a 

Germany,    Bulletin,    Military    Hospitals    Commission   of 
Canada,  April,  1916,  p.  97. 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

community  who  can  remain  in  idleness,  no 
matter  how  distressing  their  condition.  More 
than  that  —  to  support  in  idleness,  even 
though  in  distress  or  pain,  if  not  the  worst,  is 
not  the  best  means  of  assisting  the  unfortu- 
nate. 

In  the  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  the 
Military  Hospitals  Commission  of  Canada, 
Mr.  W.  M.  Dobell,  is  the  following  note  on 
convalescent  homes :  — 

"i.  Convalescent  Homes: — There  is  an  ab- 
solute unanimity  of  opinion  that  the  influence 
of  convalescent  homes  is  bad;  the  life  in  these 
institutions  is  conducive  to  lax  discipline  and 
idleness;  men  are  shown  a  different  standard  of 
living  from  what  they  have  been  accustomed 
to,  and  one  which  they  will  probably  not  be 
able  to  maintain.  This  naturally  produces  un- 
rest and  dissatisfaction.  The  aim  should  be 
to  keep  men  in  military  hospitals  under  mili- 
tary discipline  until  they  have  thoroughly  re- 
covered from  their  wounds,  and  then  either 
return  them  to  their  homes,  or  when  required, 
induce  them  to  take  vocational  training  with  a 
view  to  making  them  capable  of  supplement- 

97 


RE-EDUCATION 

ing  their  pensions."  1  That  this  is  possible  has 
already  been  clearly  shown.2 

An  inquiry  carried  on  by  the  author  some 
two  years  ago  among  the  managers  of  large 
wood-working  factories  showed  that  in  their 
opinion,  based  upon  experiences  of  twenty- 
five  years  or  more  (there  were  no  figures  from 
which  exact  deductions  could  be  drawn),  only 
one  third  of  one  per  cent  of  those  meeting 
with  serious  accident  were  actually  unable  to 
go  back  to  their  work  if  they  had  a  genuine 
desire  to  do  so. 

'  1  Bulletin,  Military  Hospitals  Commission  of  Canada, 
April,  1916,  p.  26. 

2  "But  while  the  work  has  been  primarily  curative  for 
mind  and  body,  a  great  many  men  have  found  the  training 
received  during  convalescence  to  be  of  actual  commercial 
value  in  after  life.  Already  numerous  instances  of  this  have 
occurred,  the  following  being  a  typical  example  of  the  help 
which  can  be  given  in  this  way.  It  is  well  known  that  a 
little  skill  in  mechanical  drawing,  the  ability  to  read  and 
interpret  a  blue  print,  and  a  knowledge  of  simple  shop 
arithmetic  or  mathematics,  will  enable  the  ordinary  crafts- 
man, in  most  cases,  to  become  a  foreman  or  superintend- 
ent. These  things  can  be,  and  are  being,  imparted  to  men 
in  our  hospitals,  and  cases  have  already  occurred  in  which 
men  have  returned  to  civil  life  and  taken  better  positions 
than  they  held  before  enlistment,  in  consequence  of  the  train- 
ing given  them  during  convalescence."  (Bulletin  no.  3, 
Military  Hospitals  Commission  of  Canada,  December, 
1916,  p.  3.) 

98 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

Dr.  Bourillon,  of  the  Hospital  at  St.  Mau- 
rice, states  "that  he  had  interviewed  two 
thousand  men  in  order  to  get  three  hundred 
and  fifty  students,  and  that  his  chief  ene- 
mies were  alcoholism  and  a  certain  ingrained 
idea  that,  as  the  men  had  been  wounded  in 
defense  of  the  State,  the  State  should  sup- 
port them  for  the  rest  of  their  lives."1 

Indeed,  so  thoroughly  have  our  so-called 
charitable  impulses  undermined  the  self-re- 
spect of  the  people  that  a  new  medical  term  has 
been  introduced  in  Europe  to  cover  those  cases 
who,  through  fear  of  not  being  supported  for 
nothing,  refuse  to  endeavor  to  return  to  work. 
This  condition  is  known  as  "pension  hysteria." 

The  Superintendent  of  the  Federation  Na- 
tionale  des  Mutiles  de  la  Guerre  states  that 
"the  percentage  of  men  willing  to  learn  trades 
is  practically  the  same  as  that  given  by  Dr. 
Bourillon.  They  interviewed  three  thousand 
men  in  order  to  get  five  hundred  so  that  in 
each  case  the  percentage  works  out  to  about 
seventeen  per  cent."  2 

1  Bulletin,  Military  Hospitals  Commission  of  Canada, 
April,  1916,  p.  15.  2  Ibid. 

99 


RE-EDUCATION 

"With  reference  to  the  percentage  of  men 
who  are  willing  to  take  vocational  training,  it 
is  well  to  remember  that  in  addition  to  these  — 
who  amount  to  about  seventeen  per  cent  — 
there  are  probably  about  twenty-five  per  cent 
who  are  enabled  to  get  employment  with- 
out any  training,  either  by  returning  to  their 
old  occupations,  or  by  taking  positions  as 
concierge,  garde-chasse,  watchman,  elevator- 
man,  etc. 

"This  therefore  leaves  fifty  per  cent  to 
fifty-five  per  cent  of  injured  men  who  are 
apparently  not  trying  to  do  anything.  This 
percentage  will,  I  feel  sure,  be  reduced  as  the 
men  become  more  assured  that  their  pensions 
will  not  be  reduced  in  proportion  to  their 
earning  capacity."  l 

And  Dr.  Amar,  Director  of  the  Laboratoire 
des  Recherches  sur  le  Travail  Professionnel,  in 
Paris,  estimates  that  "eighty  per  cent  of  men 
apparently  incapacitated,  can  be  made  com- 
petent workmen  and  very  few  come  under  the 
heading  of ( totally  incapacitated.'"  2 

1  Bulletin,  Military  Hospitals  Commission  of  Canada, 
April,  1916,  p.  17.  2  Ibid. 

IOO 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL'  SYSTEM: 

Thus,  one  of  the  greatest  objections  which 
the  crippled  soldier  has  to  learning  his  trade  is 
the  fear  that  it  may  decrease  his  pension.  In 
other  words,  he  would  prefer  being  supported 
by  some  one  else  to  supporting  himself,  and  in 
many  cases,  he  endeavors  to  use  his  wounds  as 
an  excuse  for  idleness  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
Unfortunately  for  the  achievement  of  this 
desire,  the  number  of  unmaimed  men  is  no 
longer  sufficient  to  carry  such  a  burden. 

But  war  is  not  the  only  condition  which 
causes  wounds,  disability,  and  death.  The 
average  annual  number  of  serious  industrial 
accidents  and  deaths  is  great  enough  to  be 
compared  with  the  figure  of  those  injured  and 
killed  in  the  first  year  of  the  war. 

We  preachers  of  the  need  of  the  Re-Edu ca- 
tion of  dependents  are  frequently  jeered  at  by 
superintendents  of  institutions  for  being  so 
"innocent"  and  "ignorant"  as  to  believe  that 
the  sick  man,  the  pauper,  or  the  prisoner  could 
be  induced  to  work.  But  the  personal  experi- 
ence of  those  who  have  sincerely  endeavored 
to  induce  those  dependents  to  work  proves 
those  jeers  to  be  without  foundation. 
101 


REEDUCATION 

Any  one,  sick  or  well,  but  especially  if  sick, 
resents  the  idea  of  having  to  do  something 
which  he  does  not  want  to  do.  In  the  work  of 
Re-Education,  the  subject  of  study  must  not 
only  be  specially  selected,  but  it  must  be  pre- 
sented to  the  student  (the  patient)  with  at 
least  as  much  consideration  as  one  would  give 
to  a  request  for  service  from  a  small  boy  or  a 
parlor  maid. 

In  the  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane  at 
Taunton,  Massachusetts,  "before  the  end  of 
ten  days "  —  after  admission  —  "fifty  per 
cent  of  the  men  patients  and  seventy-five  per 
cent  of  the  women  patients  are  employed  at 
some  useful  occupation."  l 

As  to  similar  work  with  the  lowest  type  of 
mind,  that  with  the  most  highly  pronounced 
desires  for  idleness,  experience  with  some  of 
the  inmates  on  Blackwell's  Island  shows  most 
clearly  what  can  be  accomplished  by  intelli- 
gent instruction. 

Almost  equally  sensational,  and  no  less 
valuable  than  the  work  of  the  American  sur- 

1  Reba  Cameron,  "Industries  and  Amusements,"  in 
Trained  Nurse  and  Hospital  Review,  August,  1914,  p.  69. 

102 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

geon  has  been  that  of  an  American  engineer,1 
whose  invention,  Autostereochronocyclegraph- 
ology  and  the  Simultaneous  Cycle  Motion 
Charts,  has  made  it  possible  for  even  a  worker 
not  highly  trained  to  determine  instantly  the 
adaptability  of  a  wounded  man,  with  a  given 
disability,  to  a  certain  vocation.2 

But  war  has  not  produced  this  need.  It  has 
only  emphasized  it.  At  a  Conference  on  Oc- 
cupations for  Invalids  and  Dependents,  held 
under  the  auspices  of  the  New  York  City 
Visiting  Committee,  January  17,'  1916,  Mr. 
Wright,  Deputy  Commissioner  of  Charities, 
made  the  following  statement  regarding  the 
inmates  of  BlackwelPs  Island :  — 

"Eight  years  ago  the  Committee  made  a 
beginning  by  sending  a  teacher  to  the  alms- 
house  on  Blackwell's  Island;  but  it  was  only  a 
beginning.  The  Board  of  Estimate  then  had 
an  examination  made  of  almshouse  inmates 
and  convalescents,  particularly  considering 
the  question  of  convalescent  occupation. 
Later  a  man  was  sent  to  the  large  almshouses 

1  Frank  B.  Gilbreth. 

8  See  Barton,  Occupational  Therapy,  p.  88. 

N  103 


RE-EDUCATION 

all  over  the  United  States  to  study  the  ques- 
tion but  he  was  not  able  to  find  much  light  on 
the  subject.  It  was  found  that  while  a  number 
of  occupations  were  taught,  no  effort  was  made 
to  employ  any  but  the  most  vigorous  inmates. 
Fifty  percentage  were  not  occupied. 

"The  medical  expert  of  the  committee  then 
examined  the  almshouse  patients  very  care- 
fully in  detail  and  classified  them  as  to  the 
kind  of  work  they  were  fitted  for.  It  was  de- 
termined that  sixty  percentage  could  work  in 
various  ways,  not  including  the  forty  percent- 
age bedridden  or  crippled  patients  who  could 
be  taught  occupations  suitable  to  their  lim- 
itations. There  was  also  a  fair  consensus  of 
opinion  that  at  least  in  our  municipal  hospitals 
the  patients  could  be  employed  about  fifty  per- 
centage of  the  time  of  their  stay.  The  average 
time  is  twenty  days,  and  if  each  patient  were 
employed  half  that  time  in  some  light  work  it 
would  be  equivalent  to  half  the  patients  work- 
ing every  day.  In  one  hospital  of  one  thousand 
patients  working  only  one  hour  a  day  it  would 
mean  five  hundred  hours  of  work  a  day.  The 
problem  as  far  as  it  applies  to  the  Depart- 
104 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

ment  of  Public  Charities  includes  the  sixty 
percentage  almshouse  inmates  and  the  hospi- 
tal patients;  approximately  the  occupation  of 
six  thousand  people."  * 

It  is  generally  admitted  to-day  in  Europe 
not  only  that  all  the  wounded  should  be 
occupied,  but  that  to  their  own  advantage 
Re-Education  should  be  begun  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment.  That  the  therapeutic  value 
of  such  Re-Education,  exercise,  and  occupation 
is  assured,  is  proved  from  the  fact  that  in  one 
hospital  in  Europe  a  director  of  physical  train- 
ing made  the  assertion  that  "a  graded  system 
of  exercises  under  medical  supervision  re- 
sulted in  raising  the  percentage  of  men  who 
returned  to  active  service  from  the  hospital 
from  eighteen  to  seventy-nine  per  cent." 2 
While  it  may  be  objected  that  "physical  ex- 
ercise" can  hardly  be  called  occupation,  it 
would  in  many  cases  be  the  prelude  to  occu- 
pation. 

That  the  inmates  of  our  institutions  can  be 

1  Maryland  Psychiatric  Quarterly,  October,  1916,  p.  39. 

*  It  would  appear  that  this  officer  has  based  his  per- 
centage on  some  remarkable  results  obtained  in  one  hos- 
pital. 

105 


RE-EDUCATION 

used  to  their  own  advantage,  and  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  State,  is  nowhere  better  proved 
than  in  the  prison  at  Stillwater,  Minnesota, 
wherein  from  1900  to  1916  the  growth  from  the 
industries  has  far  more  than  doubled,  so  that 
now  the  earnings  are  about  three  times  the 
amount  of  the  expenses  —  and  that  after  re- 
munerating the  prisoner  for  his  work.1 

In  the  Report  of  Mr.  Bernhardt  Jacob, 
Superintendent  of  the  Detroit  House  of  Cor- 
rection, for  1915  (pages  5-6),  is  the  follow- 
ing:— 

"Twenty-six  hundred,  or  sixty-three  per 
cent,  of  those  received  were  committed  for 
periods  of  thirty  days  and  less,  and  thirty- 
six  hundred  and  ninety-four,  or  ninety  per 
cent,  for  periods  of  ninety  days  and  less. 
.  .  .  The  Night  School,  as  heretofore,  con- 
tinues doing  splendid  work  and  the  results 
obtained  are  very  gratifying.  .  .  .  After  the 
payment  of  $14,704.55  to  the  prisoners  under 
our  co-operative  system,  and  $3109.87  for 
repairs  and  final  payments  on  the  new  dormi- 

1  Net  gain,  excess  of  earnings  over  expenses,  $593,797.07. 
(Minnesota  State  Prison  Biennial  Report,  1915-16.) 
1 06 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

tory  building,  there  remains  a  net  profit  from 
the  year's  operations  of  $46,086.94." 

Mr.  John  F.  Leonard,  Warden  of  the  Mary- 
land Penitentiary,  at  Baltimore,  in  a  paper 
read  at  the  Annual  Congress  of  the  American 
Prison  Association,  Buffalo,  October,  1916, 
said :  — 

"Realizing  that  many  men  come  to  the 
prison  because  of  ignorance,  — and  this  is  espe- 
cially true  of  the  colored  race,  which  furnishes 
two  thirds  of  the  population  of  the  Maryland 
Penitentiary,  —  it  is  evident,  if  prisoners  are 
to  be  returned  to  society  in  an  improved  state, 
this  condition  must  be  overcome.  They  must 
not  leave  as  they  entered,  and  yet  this  condi- 
tion existed  for  over  one  hundred  years.  Now 
we  have  what  is  recognized  as  one  of  the  most 
successful  prison  schools  in  the  country.  This 
consists  of  night  classes,  —  one  hundred  and 
ninety  men  and  women  —  correspondence 
classes,  and  a  class  in  sign  writing,  all  of  which 
are  doing  good,  constructive  work.  The 
teachers  are  all  inmates,  and  we  much  prefer 
such  because  an  outside  influence  is  always  a 
disturbing  influence.  I  do  not  need  to  go  into 


RE-EDUCATION 

further  details;  suffice  it  to  say  that  illiteracy 
has  been  banished  from  the  Maryland  Peni- 
tentiary. 

"Not  all  the  work  done  in  the  prison  fits 
men  for  best  results  outside,  but  much  of  it 
does,  and  many  men  are  able  to  use  to  ad- 
vantage the  training-  they  have  received  in  the 
prison.  .  .  .  For  very  many  reasons  useful  labor 
is  essential  to  character-building,  and  especially 
so  in  prison.  No  man  is  going  to  work  willingly 
merely  for  the  sake  of  working;  there  must  be 
some  end  in  view,  —  something  to  be  accom- 
plished, —  and  to  get  the  best  results  the  man 
must  be  interested  in  the  result  of  his  work. 
He  must  have  a  personal  share  in  the  profit. 
Even  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  he  is  self- 
supporting  is  not  sufficient;  there  must  be  the 
possibility  of  some  personal  gain.  In  the 
Maryland  Penitentiary  every  man  is  at  work, 
is  working  under  conditions  as  near  normal  as 
it  is  possible  to  make  them,  and  is  working 
with  the  prospect  and  possibility  of  receiving 
a  share  of  the  profit  from  his  work.  Unless 
there  should  be  an  unexpected  decrease  in  our 
population  we  confidently  expect  the  prisoners 
108 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 


to  earn  for  themselves  next  year  not  less  than 
$50,000." l 

The  reports  of  the  Maryland  Penitentiary 
cannot  be  too  carefully  studied  by  any  one 
who  has  the  welfare  of  humanity  or  of  the  State 
at  heart. 

The  school  at  the  Stillwater,  Minnesota, 
Prison 2  shows  the  following  gratifying  results : 

Comparative  School  Attendance  Record  for  Year 
ending  July  31,  1916 

School  Term,  1915-1916 
September  75,  /p/5,  to  May  12,  1916 


Sept 

Oct 

Nov 

Dec 

Jan 

Feb 

Mar 

Apr 

ii 

178 
172 

3 
140 
II 

o 

i 

May 

To- 
tal 

7 
214 

212 
S 
207 

I 

2 
9 

I 

0 

o 

13 

214 
215 

S 
168 
9 

2 

8 
3 

o 

42 

13 

211 
2IO 

S 
163 
12 

I 
I 

12 

178 
178 

5 
146 

29 

4 

12 

12 

179 

178 

5 
146 
4 

8 

12 

180 
177 

S 
145 

10 
0 

5 

U 

176 
176 

S 
141 

7 

I 
14 

6 

ife 
167 

5 
136 

5 

o 
o 

100 

214 

187 

5 
171 
88 

ii 

58 

12 

I 

27 

Attendance  at  opening  ses- 

Average  attendance  
Average  compulsory  attend- 
ance   
Average  voluntary  attend- 

Excused  by  physician  tem- 
porarily   
Excused  by  physician  per- 

Enrolled  during  month  .... 
Reported  for  breach  of  rules 
Reported  for  indolence  and 
lack  of  interest  in  school 

I 
42 

"    O 

27 

o 
27 

o 

27 

o 

3° 

o 

27 

0 

26 

Illiterate   average   compul- 
sory attendance  

1  John  F.  Leonard,  Experiences  in  Prison  Administration. 

2  Nineteenth  Biennial  Report,  1915-16,  Minnesota  State 
Prison,  p.  31. 

109- 


RE-EDUCATION 

32.  AN  INDICATION  OF  THE  METHODS  OF 
RE-EDUCATION 

I  have  endeavored  to  indicate  that  society 
is  greatly  in  need  of  two  things  —  an  in- 
creased number  of  producers  and  an  increase 
in  their  efficiency.  An  increase  in  efficiency 
must  begin  in  many,  if  not  in  most,  cases  with 
the  stimulation  of  the  desire  to  become  more 
efficient.  At  no  period  in  the  life  of  a  man  is 
his  mind  more  receptive  to  new  ideas  (pro- 
vided they  are  properly  presented)  than  dur- 
ing convalescence;  and  the  same  is  true  in 
many  instances  of  dependent  life. 

"When  the  moon  is  bright  and  the  snow  is 
on  the  ground,  we  expect  a  small  boy,  who  has 
been  running  errands  all  day,  to  put  away  his 
sled  and,  in  a  hot,  stuffy  room,  to  study  arith- 
metic or  bookkeeping.  When  the  same  boy  is 
in  the  hospital  with  a  compound  fracture,  we 
think  that  we  are  doing  all  that  is  necessary 
if  we  send  him  a  copy  of  an  old  magazine.  In 
the  first  instance,  his  endeavor  to  locate  a  mis- 
take of  two  perfectly  imaginary  pennies  is  con- 
flicting with  his  recollection  of  the  most  fas- 
cinating of  ' belly  bumps'  at  the  bottom  of  the 

1 10 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

hill.  In  the  second  instance,  he  is  yearning  for 
anything  that  will  help  him  pass  away  the 
dreary  hours.  That  is  a  condition  of  mind  of 
which  the  trained  educator  can  take  advan- 
tage and,  even  if  it  increases  the  labor  of  the 
hospital,  it  is  possible  by  introducing  such 
work  there  to  make  a  saving  in  another  line  of 
social  endeavor."  l 

"  In  Re-Education,  as  in  education,  the  pri- 
mary aim  in  the  selection  of  subjects  is  to  meet 
fundamental  needs  in  such  a  way  that  those 
fundamentals  may  be  the  common  starting- 
point  for  a  large  number  of  widely  diverse 
secondary  courses,"  —  as  arithmetic  is  neces- 
sary to  the  shopkeeper  and  the  chemist  as 
well  as  the  mathematician. 

"The  'three  RV  of  Re-Education  have 
rapidly  proved  themselves  to  be  drawing, 
modeling,  and  mechanics. 

"It  is  as  impossible  for  a  man  to  go  far  in 
advanced  industrial  life  without  a  knowledge 
of  drawing  (the  universal  language  of  labor)  as 
it  would  be  for  one  to  go  far  in  literature  with- 
out being  able  to  read  and  write. 

1  Barton,   Occupational  Therapy^  pp.  41,  42. 
Ill 


RE-EDUCATION 

"Not  only  has  it  been  necessary  to  invent 
new  methods  for  teaching  these  subjects,  but 
it  has  been  necessary  to  invent  new  methods 
for  teaching  the  same  subject  to  patients  with 
different  diseases  and  disabilities.  Beneficial 
therepeutic  effects  should  always  be  the  first 
consideration. 

"Some  of  these  subjects  are  proving  to  be 
surprisingly  dangerous;  for  instance,  paper- 
folding,  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  old-time 
'amusements  for  invalids,'  may  produce  seri- 
ous results  when  handled  according  to  modern 
methods.  The  small  boy  can  easily  become 
hysterical  upon  discovering  that  he  has  made 
a  'doggy  with  a  tail  that  really  wags';  and  if 
in  the  endeavor  to  interest  a  professor  of 
mathematics  who  is  too  weak  to  do  anything 
requiring  more  energy,  I  discover  (apparently 
by  accident)  that  the  paper  I  have  folded 
proves  that  in  a  right-angled  triangle  the 
square  of  the  hypothenuse  equals  the  sum  of 
the  square  of  the  other  two  sides,  I  not  only 
'interest'  him,  but  by  suggesting  that  it  may 
also  be  possible  in  the  same  manner  to  prove 
'the  spiral  of  Archimedes,'  I  may  produce  an 

112 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

effect  equivalent  to  a  hypodermic  of  strychnia. 
Any  physician  should  see  the  possibilities  of 
that,  especially  if  stimulants  were  to  be  avoided. 
The  same  effect  would  not  be  produced  upon 
the  small  boy,  who,  not  understanding  the 
significance  of  what  has  been  done,  would  not 
be  interested  in  the  deduction  so  fascinating  to 
the  trained  mind;  yet  the  paper  dog  may  be 
used  to  lead  the  boy  on  to  the  study  of  geome- 
try in  exactly  the  same  way  that  malted  milk 
may  be  the  beginning  of  a  treatment  involving 
generous  doses  of  iron  which,  at  first,  the  pa- 
tient would  not  be  able  to  assimilate.  Thus, 
paper-folding  may  be  used  as  a  powerful  stim- 
ulant, a  mild  tonic,  or  a  hypnotic,  according 
to  the  method  of  administration.1 " 

Without  explanation,  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  many  of  the  most  important  trades  could 
be  taught  to  sick  people.  Millinery,  with  its 
fascinating  bits  of  ribbon,  feathers,  and  flow- 
ers, is  obviously  a  trade  which  many  could  do 
in  bed.  But  certainly  one  could  not  expect  to 
find  many  very  sick  people  who  could  study 
carpentry,  who  could  handle  sills  of  four  by 

1  Barton,  Occupational  Therapy,  pp.  39-41. 


RE-EDUCATION 

eight  hard  pine,  or  put  up  a  ridge.  But  joinery 
can  be  taught  on  a  whittling-tray  in  bed,  at  a 
quarter  or  a  three-quarter-inch  scale,  or  out 
of  half-inch  soft  pine.  And,  while  this  would 
provide  no  practical  work  with  carpenters' 
tools,  that  work  would  and  should  come  later. 
We  do  not  fail  to  teach  the  boy  his  numbers, 
even  if  some  years  must  elapse  before  he 
reaches  the  pons  asinorum. 

At  first  the  product  is  no  greater  —  but  no 
less  —  than  is  the  blank  book  in  which  we 
scribbled  our  first  "pot-hooks  and  hangers"; 
and,  while  a  patient  must  be  almost  well  be- 
fore he  can  undertake  actual  structural  car- 
pentry, there  is  a  wide  field  in  the  making  of 
furniture,  for  instance;  or,  to  suggest  a  direct 
secondary  course  to  "joinery  in  bed,"  the 
making  of  children's  play-houses,  doll-houses, 
bird-houses,  garden-  and  summer-houses,  etc., 
which,  while  introducing  many  of  the  prob- 
lems of  joinery  and  construction,  would,  be- 
cause they  are  so  much  smaller  than  a  dwelling, 
be  of  shorter  and  lighter  stock,  would  be  possi- 
ble for  the  convalescent,  and  would  leave  a 
product  of  commercial  value. 
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OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

It  seems  highly  improbable  that  there  would 
be  found  in  any  hospital  the  "makings  of  a 
gang"  for  a  Bessemer  converter,  an  open- 
hearth  furnace,  or  any  foundry;  but  it  is  by  no 
means  improbable  that  there  are  many  in 
every  large  hospital  who  could  be  helped  and 
benefited  by  pattern-making,  by  moulding,  by 
the  casting  of  plaster,  cement,  or  pewter  —  all 
resulting  in  products  of  value. 

It  would  be  absurd  to  suggest  now  a  course 
for  the  practical  training  of  locomotive  engi- 
neers. But  with  a  tin  can,  a  knitting-needle, 
and  an  alcohol  lamp,  a  patient  can  (in  bed) 
assemble  and  run  a  steam  turbine  (Hero's 
engine)  of  sufficient  power  to  turn  pulleys  of 
spools  with  belts  of  string,  and  thus  learn 
much  about  the  transference  and  the  trans- 
formation of  motion.  Such  a  "bed-tray" 
would  probably  surprise,  delight,  and  amuse 
an  experienced  locomotive  engineer  quite  as 
much  as  it  would  a  small  boy,  and  would  with 
both  provoke  interest,  thought,  and  experi- 
mentation. This  treatment  might  well  be  used 
both  in  the  case  of  the  small  boy  and  in  that 
of  the  engineer,  should  each  show  indications 
"5 


RE-EDUCATION 

of  mechanical  genius  or  keen  interest;  and  it 
could  be  taught  to  both  (like  arithmetic), 
though  its  after-effects  in  subsequent  training 
might  be  quite  different. 

33.  WHAT  SOME  INDIVIDUALS  HAVE 
ALREADY  ACCOMPLISHED 

Pain,  disability,  and  distress  have  quite 
different  effects  upon  different  individuals. 
Though  the  majority  of  human  beings  are  in- 
clined to  give  up  —  to  "lie  down" — when 
sick  or  in  trouble,  there  are  many  upon  whom 
pain  and  distress  have  the  opposite  effect  — 
who  are  inspired  not  to  do  less,  but  to  do  more, 
by  their  discomfort  or  disability.  Certainly 
not  all  sick  or  discouraged  men  can  be  made  to 
see  the  "sporting  possibilities"  of  their  afflic- 
tion; but  so  many  have  done  so  that  it  seems 
safe  to  assume  that  many  more  can  do  so  than 
are  now  prompted  so  to  do.  The  first  endeavor, 
then,  in  the  Re-Education  of  dependents  is  to 
make  the  individual  desire  to  learn. 

"The  teaching  element  is  more  important  in 
this  new  phase  of  adequate  placement  than  it 
has  ever  been  before,  because  in  every  case  a 

116 


OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

new  or  changed  worker  must  be  made  useful, 
self-supporting  and  interested.  That  he  be- 
come and  remain  interested  implies  the  highest 
form  of  teaching  and  of  learning."  x 

Sufficient  laboratory  experiment  has  already 
been  made  during  the  past  three  years  at  Con- 
solation House  and  in  allied  institutions  to  con- 
vince me  that  such  a  stimulation  of  interest 
and  desire  is  possible  with  a  very  considerable 
proportion  of  dependents.  And,  if  we  admit 
the  unit,  we  must  admit  the  possibility  of  mul- 
tiplication. What  is  possible  with  one,  while 
perhaps  not  possible  for  all,  must  nevertheless 
be  possible  for  more  than  one. 

Some  of  the  triumphs  over  disability  are  too 
encouraging  not  to  be  noted.  For  instance,  the 
one-legged  French  blacksmith  who,  by  putting 
a  hook  in  his  peg-leg,  and  that  through  a  ring- 
bolt in  the  floor,  made  his  disability  increase 
his  efficiency  by  making  a  more  useful  leg  for 
his  work  than  Nature  had  provided.  Another, 
who  through  the  loss  of  his  forearm  learned  to 

1  Gilbreth,  "Motion  Study  for  the  Crippled  Soldier," 
Journal  of  the  American  Society  of  Mechanical  Engineers, 
December,  1915,  p.  671. 


RE-EDUCATION 

use  his  stump  in  such  a  way  as  to  dispense 

with  a  costly  machine.  John  C ,  who  was 

so  completely  paralyzed  as  to  have  movement 
only  in  his  eyes  and  tongue,  developed  his  in- 
terest sufficiently  to  learn  to  draw  with  his 
tongue  well  enough  to  illustrate  a  book  on 
birds  published  by  the  British  Government. 

Beatrice  C ,  who,  though  dumb,  turned 

her  affliction  into  the  nimbus  of  a  saint  by  de- 
voting her  life  to  the  teaching  of  others,  who, 
though  also  dumb,  had  had  fewer  advantages 

than  she  herself.  Jack  A ,  who,  managing 

to  live  in  spite  of  a  broken  neck,  turned  his 
disability  into  "press-agent  stuff,"  using  his 
own  distorted  body  as  an  advertisement  with 
which  to  sell  accident  insurance.  Edward 

P ,  blinded  and  deprived  of  the  use  of 

his  right  arm  in  an  explosion,  by  a  few  weeks' 
tuition  changed  himself  from  a  vender  of  news- 
papers to  a  self-supporting  manufacturer  of 
knitted  thermos-bottle  holders,  with  a  market 
extending  all  over  the  country.  And  a  one- 
eyed,  one-armed,  deaf,  legless  man  who  sup- 
ported himself  profitably  by  dental  nursing.  Or 
even  the  author  who,  during  the  ten  or  twelve 

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OUR  INSTITUTIONAL  SYSTEM 

years  of  hospital  and  convalescent  life  neces- 
sary for  the  overcoming  of  four  attacks  of  tu- 
berculosis, four  surgical  operations,  including 
an  exploratory  laparotomy  and  an  amputation, 
morphinism,  hysteria,  gangrene,  and  paralysis, 
has  studied  the  relation  of  the  sick  man  to 
society,  and  who  now  offers  this  little  book  as 
one  of  the  results  of  his  disability. 


THE   END 


tifte  ftifcetffte 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S    .  A 


06663 


OF  CAUFORN.A  UBRARV 


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